What Love Is
by Morganperidot
Summary: This is a John and Natalie story that begins after the baby secrets have been revealed.
1. Chapter 1

What Love Is: Part 1

By Morganperidot

1

John McBain stood at the edge of the roof of his building and looked out at the night sky over the city of Llanview. The sky was clear, devoid of stars and the moon, and the air was chilly. John wasn't the type to contemplate suicide, but in that moment, looking down from that height, the pain of the loss he had suffered tearing him apart, he could understand why other people did.

John sighed and walked back over to where he had set down the 6-pack of beer that was now half empty. He opened another bottle and drank, even though the alcohol wasn't taking any of the edge off his pain. He still felt the same agony he had when he had first learned the terrible secrets that Natalie had kept from him for months while he built castles in the air based on the fake foundation of a family that was nothing but a brittle batch of lies.

Natalie had slept with Brody.

She had a paternity test done.

The baby was Brody's.

She knew it for months.

She was never going to tell him.

When he'd heard it all and understood the implications of all of it, John had been furious. He had said every cruel thing that came into his mind and called the woman he loved, the woman who should have been his wife and the mother of his child, everything from a liar to a whore. And when she had stood there, looking at him with that baby in her arms and tears pouring down her cheeks, and said over and over again that he was the one she loved and he was the father of their baby in every way that mattered, he had said nothing, just turned and walked away.

Now, as the cold night air penetrated his black leather jacket like the dagger of pain that penetrated his heart, John was no longer angry. All he felt was a black hole inside himself that threatened the destruction of his entire being.

2

Natalie Banks had moved back into Llanfair, but she found no real solace with her family. There was no way that they could comfort her, and as much as she loved her son, it hurt every time she looked at him, because John wasn't with them. She knew she had made innumerable mistakes in not telling John the truth, but she had kept hoping that somehow things would work out without exposing a one-time mistake that held no real bearing on the future. No matter what some piece of paper said, John was Liam's father, and he always would be.

"Natalie?"

Natalie turned and looked at her mother. "Sorry, I didn't know you were there," she said. She laid Liam back down in his crib. "What's up?" she asked.

"I thought you might want to talk," Viki said. "I can understand why you would want to keep to yourself after everything that happened, but it might help to discuss some of it."

"I don't think anything will help," Natalie said. She shifted her long red hair and looked back at Liam. "Everything is ruined," she said. "I ruined everything."

"That isn't true," Viki said. "You have a beautiful son, and no matter who that child's biological father is, you will always be his mother. And he will always be the light and love of your life."

Natalie smiled sadly and looked back at Viki. "I know," she said. "But he doesn't have a father because of me. He doesn't have John as his father."

"You don't know what John will…"

"I know John," Natalie said firmly. "He will never forgive this." She shook her head to reinforce her words.

"He loves you, Natalie," Viki said.

"He loved something that doesn't exist," Natalie said, "and he knows that now." She held back the tears that threatened to start flowing again. She had already shed too many. "It's over between us," she said.

"I'm not so sure I believe that," Viki said. "I don't think he'll be able to let you and that baby go so easily."

A tear slipped out, and Natalie wiped it away with her hand. "I wish that were true," she said, walking back over to Liam. "But I'm sure he's already put both of us behind him."

3

When John arrived at the door to his apartment he found one of Viki's daughters waiting there, but it wasn't the one he might have expected. "Jessica?" he said.

"Try again, Lieutenant," the blonde said in a playful tone.

"Tess," John said. Under other circumstances he might have called Viki or Brody about Jessica's alter, but he had no interest in doing that now. "Why are you here?" he asked.

Tess smiled, and John had a moment to take in her un-Jessica-like, low-cut, tight flower-patterned dress. "Why am I out, or why am I at this location?" she asked.

"Why are you standing here?" he asked, not in the mood for games.

Tess held out a bottle of whiskey. "I thought we could have a drink and chat," she said.

"I'm not interested," John said.

"Really?" Tess said. "Do you have something better to do, like work with your fiancée or take care of her baby? I could have told you that Natalie is nothing but a duplicitous little schemer. After all, her lies destroyed my life too, and she killed my love." Tess paused for a moment and then added, "Don't tell me we don't have plenty in common, John. C'mon, have a drink with me."

"If you think you can get back at Natalie for being with Brody by sleeping with me, that isn't going to happen," John said.

Tess laughed, a sharp bark that was without joy. "Don't flatter yourself," she said. "And I couldn't care less what Natalie did with Brody. He's always just been nothing more than a weak substitute for Nash. As far as I'm concerned they've both gotten what they deserve."

Something about Brody losing his family did finally take the edge off of John's own pain. He glanced over at the whiskey bottle. "All right," he said. "But keep your hands to yourself." He opened the door.

"Of course, Lieutenant," Tess said as she followed him inside.

4

Natalie couldn't sleep, so she put a robe over her nightgown, took the baby monitor, and went down to the library to read. When she opened the doors she was surprised – and more than mildly annoyed – to find Brody inside. She turned to go but stopped when he said her name. After a moment of hesitation she turned and went inside, closing the doors behind her. "You shouldn't be here," she said.

"I keep hoping Jessica will come back," Brody said. It was clear he had been drinking, and Natalie couldn't stop herself from remembering that night they had commiserated together and wound up in bed. She kicked herself mentally for the millionth time; not for what happened, because she had thought she and John were done, but because she had never taken one of the many opportunities John had given her to come clean about it. It would have been bad in the beginning, but things might have been reparable if she had told John before she had known she was pregnant or even after, before Liam was born and everything had exploded in her face.

"I'm sorry about what happened between you and Jessica," Natalie said. Her sister's life had imploded as well, blowing apart her family. At a time when she and Jessica should have both been happy, sharing the joy of their children with their husbands, there was nothing but devastation everywhere Natalie looked, including inside of her and surely Jessica as well, wherever she had run off to. "You were good together," she said.

"Like you and John," Brody said. "I'm sorry about that too. If I could change what…"

"But we can't," Natalie said. "We can't change what we did or what happened because of it. I kept hoping and praying that if I just pretended that Liam was John's child for long enough eventually it would just be true. It should have been true; that was all that I wanted."

"I know," Brody said. "And I won't…make any claims to Liam. I know you want to work things out with John."

"There's nothing to work out," Natalie said. "John and I are done. He doesn't want anything to do with me or Liam."

"Give him some time, Natalie," Brody said. "I have to believe there is enough time for Jessica and me to fix what went wrong with us."

"There may be," Natalie said. "But it doesn't matter if I wait until the end of time; there's no future for John and me." She opened the doors and walked out of the room.

5

"Hard to believe Natalie would live in this place," Tess said, walking through the apartment and looking around. "What does the police department pay you anyway? Don't you have enough to live somewhere better?"

John didn't respond. He set down his nearly empty glass and looked at the bottle of whiskey. Beside it on the table was his cell phone, and despite the fog that was starting settle over his thoughts, the urge was still there to pick it up and call, to make that connection and fix what was broken. He felt a fresh pang of heartache. Dammit, he missed Natalie…and Liam.

"I still think about Nash all the time," Tess said. "We were supposed to have a life together and a real family. I know what it's like to lose that. Jessica too, though she would never admit it. A family with Brody wasn't what was meant to be. It was Nash and me; he promised…" She drifted off. John looked over at her, expecting tears, but there weren't any. She just looked back at him with hard eyes. "Natalie took him from me, and she deserves to lose the love of her life forever," she said. "She deserves to know what it's like to never be able to get that back, no matter what she tries. She deserves to break apart, just like I did." Tess walked around the sofa, picked up the bottle, and screwed on the top. "Congratulations on giving my sister her due, John," she said. "It's been a long time coming and well past time. Losing Jared was bad, but she never loved him like she loved you." She took the bottle and left the apartment.

Tess's dark, brutal words continued to ring in John's thoughts for several minutes, especially that terrible line, "She deserves to break apart." Did Natalie deserve that? He reached for the glass on the table and saw that his hand was shaking. Then he looked back over at the phone.

6

Natalie was crying again. As much as she didn't want to do that around Liam, she couldn't stop the tears. There was an emptiness in her, an emptiness that would never be filled. What she had said to Brody was true; this was a wound that no time would ever heal. She wouldn't have the man she loved, and her son wouldn't have the father he needed. And the latter of the two was perhaps the greatest tragedy of all.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart," Natalie said, looking at her sleeping son. "I tried so hard, but I made too many mistakes. I'm just so sorry." Silent tears traveled well-worn paths down her cheeks, as Natalie turned away, left the nursery, and went back to her bedroom to make another futile attempt at sleeping. She tossed her robe on a chair but before she could get to the bed her cell phone started to ring. Her first impulse was to let it go to voicemail, but she knew she had to answer it – it could be Jessica. She pulled it out of her purse and was frozen for a moment by the name on the screen: John. John? "John?" she said. "Are you OK?"

"No," he said quietly.

When he didn't say anything more, Natalie said, "I'm sorry about…"

"I love you," John said. "I love our…I love Liam."

"I know," Natalie said. "We love you too. I wish I could fix this." There was silence for several seconds, and Natalie had to check to make sure the call was still connected.

Finally John spoke again, and what he said truly shocked her. "Could I come there tomorrow and see him?" he asked.

At first Natalie couldn't speak, and then she forced herself to. "Yes, of course," she said. Then she added, "I don't have to be here…"

"I want to see you too," John said softly.

Natalie looked over at the bed, because she was afraid she was dreaming. But her dreams since breaking up with John had never been this good. "OK," was all she could say.

"Good night," John said.

"Good night," Natalie replied. The call was over, but she continued to hold the phone tightly in her hand until she could finally pull it away from her ear. Then she looked at it like it was something she had never seen before, still squeezing it enough to crush it. Without thinking, she set it down on the nightstand and got into bed, certain she would never sleep, as the conversation played over and over again in her mind until she was almost convinced she had made it up. She picked up the phone and looked at the recent calls. John, it said. John. She didn't know how it had happened, but it had, and maybe, just maybe, there was a reason to hope for more.


	2. Chapter 2

What Love Is: Part 2

By Morganperidot

1

Natalie rose early the next morning and checked on Liam before going back to her room to take another look at her cell phone. It was still there, the record that John had called. After what she had told him about Brody and Liam and what he had said to her in response, a chasm had opened up between them that she had thought could never been crossed. She had certainly never expected that John would reach out to her – or Liam. But when she thought about it, and remembered how he was with her baby – their baby – she could understand it. Liam was important to him, more important than the pain of not being the boy's biological father. And that connection was more important than the pain of coming face to face with her, as well.

Natalie sighed and set down the phone. John had said that he wanted to see her too, but she didn't want to fool herself into believing that meant he wanted to reunite with her. If anything, it had to do with working something out so he could be in Liam's life. But still, that was something, and more than she would have expected.

She spent a long time in the shower, her eyes closed, simply enjoying the hot water in a way that she hadn't allowed herself to for quite some time. She washed and conditioned her hair, digging deep with her fingers. When she stepped out she dried off with one of the big fluffy towels and then dried her hair and combed it, glad to see it glisten again after days of dullness.

Natalie went to her closet and stood for a moment staring at her clothes before pulling out a blue top and jeans and putting them on. Looking in a mirror, she remembered a day not so long ago when John had called her pretty while she was wearing that top. He had touched her hair and kissed her lips, softly, gently, lovingly, and time had stopped like it always did when he kissed her. There had been nothing else in the universe but the two of them, and she had known that was the way things were always meant to be – or so she had thought.

She picked out a gold chain with a blue topaz pendant, and put it on. The pendant hung low, near her cleavage, drawing the eye to the area of her ample endowment. She looked at in the mirror; was it foolish to wear it? It might be in bad taste to seem like she was trying to tempt John into something. But since there was no chance of him being tempted, it really didn't matter. She liked the necklace, so she left it on.

"You're looking better," Viki said.

Natalie turned. "John called," she said.

Her mother smiled. "I told you it wouldn't be so easy for him to let go," she said.

"It's Liam he can't let go of," Natalie said. "He said he wanted to stop by to see him."

"And that's all he said?" Viki asked.

"He said he wanted to see me too but…"

"He still loves you, Natalie," Viki said, "like you still love him."

"No," Natalie said, "not like that, not like it was. I hurt him too much for that. Any chance we had to be together, to have a future, is gone now. The most we can ever be is friends."

"Somehow I doubt that," Viki said. "You've been apart before, and what you feel for each other always draws you back together as a couple."

Natalie shook her head and looked away. "This is different," she said. "This time it was supposed to be for real, for everything, marriage and a family together. And I let him think that another man's child was his. I lied to him over and over, and I was willing to marry him and build a life with him that was full of those lies. There is no way he can get past that."

"You made mistakes, Natalie," Viki said, "but you did it because you love him, and you didn't want to hurt him."

Natalie looked back at him. "I didn't want to lose him," she said. "And it wound up happening anyway. If I had been honest with him earlier we may have had a chance."

"I think you still do," Viki said.

"Wishful thinking," Natalie said.

"We'll see," Viki said.

Natalie heard the text message sound on her phone, and she walked over and picked it up. There was a message from John that said simply: Noon? Natalie felt her heart start pounding. She responded: OK. When she turned back to where her mother was standing, she was gone.

2

John stood outside the front door of Llanfair, and took serious consideration of his second thoughts. As much as he missed both Natalie and Liam, he knew that seeing them again might be a mistake. He would be putting himself in a position to be hurt and made a fool of again – by continuing an attachment to a child that wasn't his and a woman who had lied to his face repeatedly, a woman who he had held in arms each night and let deeper into his heart than any other. He put his hands in the pockets of his black leather jacket and just stood there, unable to leave and just as unable to step forward and knock on that door. He looked back behind him at how big the world was, and he knew that what his life was and what he felt were just so tiny and insignificant. What he did didn't matter; in a hundred years no one would remember this moment, his indecision, or the outcome. The only significance to that moment was what he was willing to ascribe to it, and whether he chose to take a step forward or retreat, whether he acted out of love or fear.

John waited a second or two longer, hesitating, knowing it was at least a quarter of an hour past noon already. If he disappeared now, stood her up, he supposed in a way that would make some sort of ironic sense, and it would be understandable down the road. He could explain it as payback rather than weakness, make it sound good. But of course he would never tell anyone. His life was already full of so much ridiculous public shame that adding more to it would just be overkill, and god-awful stupid.

He walked to the door and knocked, hard, so there was no possibility of not being heard. He was going to face this, he had to, and whatever happened on the other side of that, happened.

The door opened, and Natalie stood there, looking so beautiful that all of the wounds in his heart started to bleed simultaneously. "Hi," she said.

"Hi," he said softly.

"Come in," she said, stepping aside so he could pass.

John walked past her into Llanfair and heard her close the door behind him. He turned and looked at her standing there, so gorgeous, and part of him wanted nothing more than to close the space between them, press her against the door, and kiss her lips firmly. His entire body was already responding to the sight of her, the need to touch her. Instead he looked at the stairs and up to where the baby would be, the baby he had thought was his, and whom he still wished was his. "Liam is upstairs?" he asked, just to break the charged silence between them.

"Yes," Natalie said, her voice coated with what had to be false cheerfulness. "I know he'll be happy to see you."

She took a few steps toward the stairs, and before he was even award he was thinking it, John said, "Don't pretend with me."

Natalie stopped and turned back to him. "I'm not," she said. "He's been used to having you around, and he knows that you haven't been. He'll be glad to have you back even for a short time."

"That isn't what I mean," John said. "This…you and I…it's weird. I don't want to act like it isn't."

"I'm glad to see you," Natalie said. "I know you aren't really here to see me but…"

"Don't make assumptions about me either," John said. The urge to kiss her hadn't dissipated. He took a step toward her and was a bit surprised when she took a step back. He replayed what he had just said in his mind and heard the harshness of his tone. He didn't like the way she was looking at him, with an unveiled unease that made his stomach sick. How had he managed to derail this encounter so quickly?

And then he thought: What do I have to lose now? So he moved closer, backing her up against the staircase, and grabbed hold of her, around her waist, pressing her to him, against him, so close that his desires surged up and exploded into his brain, and he finally satisfied that need to kiss her, his lips against hers, received and then welcomed, bringing relief that cut through his discomfort like a hot knife through margarine. He closed his eyes for a moment, letting all the external reasons not to continue on this path fall away, and felt her arms close around him. God, he needed her, all of her. He needed her back with him, as his.

Then he heard Liam crying, and reality came back into focus. He stepped back from her. "I'm sorry," he said. "I shouldn't have…"

"I'm not," Natalie said. She looked at him with her lovely glistening eyes for a moment and then turned and went up the stairs. After a few seconds of watching her, John followed.

3

Natalie had to fight to keep her knees from buckling as she walked up the stairs. She was shaking, and her mind kept spiraling back to that kiss, playing it over and over like it was stuck in a loop. It was a loop she had no desire to break free from.

John had sounded so angry when he had said not to make assumptions about him, and when he came at her, she wasn't entirely sure what he was going to do. And then…that kiss. There were just no words for it, no way to describe how she had felt in that moment, because she still hadn't recovered from it. Rather than think too much about it, she just let her mother radar lead her to Liam, finding him red-faced and wailing in his crib. "What's wrong sweetheart?" she asked, steadying herself as much as she could before she reached for him. "Why is Mommy's big boy crying?" She picked up Liam and held him, but he continued to cry. She felt John's approach as a warm tingle throughout her body; he came up to her and silently took Liam into his own arms, holding him close and talking to him quietly. Natalie felt tears well up in her eyes as her child became soothed and quiet in John's arms. How had this all gone so wrong?

"Natalie…"

"I told you he'd be glad to see you," she said. She wiped away a tear that slipped out.

"I didn't mean to upset you," John said.

"You didn't," she said. "I mean you did…but that kiss, and this, it's all so right. It's how things should be." Another tear slipped out, and she wiped that one away as well. "I'm just so emotional. I don't want you to think that I'm unhappy…"

"Why would I think that?" John said softly, cuddling the now cooing baby in his arms.

"I'm happy you're here, I just…"

"Why didn't you tell me?" John asked.

"Because I didn't want it to be true," Natalie said. "I didn't want to see your face and have it all be real. That was the worst of it, worse than losing you, seeing you think you'd lost another child."

"It all seemed so right this time," John said. "I wanted to believe it was all perfect, even though I kept sensing something was off."

"Your cop sense…"

"My Natalie sense," John said. Liam was drifting back to sleep, and John set him back down in the crib. "I knew something was off with you. Things didn't feel the same as they did when we were together before. I convinced myself that it was because of the baby, because you were experiencing different things physically. But I knew, deep down, I knew it was something else…"

"I never cared about Brody," Natalie said, eager to have him understand at least that.

John looked at her. "You had to have felt something to sleep with him," he said, "and then to keep secrets with him behind my back."

"No," Natalie said. "It wasn't like that. He had lost Jessica; I lost you – I thought it was forever this time. I was going to go to the UK, work with Kevin, and live a different life without you. I wasn't thinking or feeling anything but that loss, the hopes and dreams I'd lost when I saw you and Marty. There were no other feelings, nothing at all."

"You were with him like you were with me…"

"No, not at all," Natalie said, the horror of it sickening her. "Absolutely not all."

"You wanted to pass his baby off as mine, as if it didn't make any difference," John said.

"I wanted him to be yours," Natalie said, "he could have been. He should have been."

John looked over at Liam. "Yeah, he should have been," he said. "Like I should have been at Rodi's when you asked me to be. Like I should have been with you rather than Marty." He shook his head. "There are so many things that should have been," he said.

Natalie couldn't stop the tears from falling, so she didn't try. She turned away from John. It all came to down to that moment, that bad decision to sleep with Brody, her sister's boyfriend, John's colleague. That had been the moment when her life took a turn that could never be undone. "I'm sorry," she said. "If I could change all of it, I would. That was what I tried to do with all the lies; I tried to make things right, the way they were supposed to be. It wasn't about hiding things from you. It was about trying to fix what was wrong." She turned back to him. "If I had told you…"

"I don't know," John said. "I think we would still be where we are now."

"I don't want to lose you," Natalie said. John walked over to her, and wiped away the tear streaks, then held her face in his hands. He didn't say anything, but Natalie felt the comfort of his hands seep into her until she could move closer to him and come to rest with her head against him. He put his arms around her and held her. Natalie closed her eyes and breathed, letting out the anxiety. They stood together that way for a while, Natalie letting his warm body calm her, until she finally felt safe to step out of his embrace. "Thank you," she said.

"I haven't forgotten anything," John said, his tone quiet and gentle, and Natalie understood what he was saying. Despite all the lying and pretending, there had been some intensely beautiful honesty between them, unspoken honestly, the honesty of two hearts that connected but had yet to find the perfect fit that would last.

"Neither have I," Natalie said.

John turned back to look at Liam. "He's so perfect," he said.

"Yes, he is," Natalie said.

There was quiet for a moment, close to a minute, as they both looked at the baby. Then John said, "I should go."

"You could stay for lunch," Natalie said quickly.

"I don't think I can be around the Buchanan family right now," John said.

"We could go somewhere…"

"Maybe this weekend," John said. He looked at her. "Call me."

"OK," Natalie said,

John walked to the doorway. "When he wakes up, tell Liam I love him, and I'll miss him," he said.

"I will," Natalie said, and she watched him walk away with her thoughts and emotions in turmoil. And yet she felt better than she had expected after John's visit, much better, and when she looked back at Liam, she smiled.


	3. Chapter 3

What Love Is: Part 3

By Morganperidot

1

John spent most of his time at work trying not to think about Natalie. It wasn't that he wasn't busy; there were plenty of cases that needed his attention, a ton of paperwork to do, and various other odds and ends that should have been distracting him. But his thoughts kept drifting back to Natalie and Liam.

Natalie had put in for maternity leave before their break-up, so it was not unexpected that she would be out of the office. But there was a strange emptiness now – an emptiness of loss that would not have been present if he had a wife and child waiting for him at home. Now there was no family for him, no one waiting. He had lost both Natalie and Liam at once when he found out that Liam wasn't his son. He had lost them because he had walked away, unable to cope with the fact that Natalie had slept with Brody and not told him – and bore Brody's son. All the lies had infuriated him, but mostly he was close to mortally wounded by the loss of another child. It had felt like his heart was ripped right out of his body and salt thrown in the wound, and it had seemed like that wound was completely and utterly irreparable.

No, John knew that wasn't true. When he had gone to Llanfair and kissed Natalie and held Liam the pain had dimmed to nothing more than an echo. Sitting at his desk at the police station, John closed his eyes and indulged himself in the memory. He remembered his body pressed against Natalie, and her welcoming his kiss, full and passionate, with her soft lips. The look in her eyes when he stepped back from her had made him want to sweep her up in his arms and carry her to her bedroom where he could mindlessly ravage her. That thought made his body react even now, days removed from that moment. If she were there now he didn't know if he would be able to stop himself; it was only Liam's cries that had stopped him at Llanfair.

John opened his eyes and took out his wallet. He pulled a picture of Liam out of it, and sat looking at it for a few seconds. The baby he saw there still felt like his son, the product of his and Natalie's love. How could Liam be another man's child? It didn't make sense. He wanted to find the lie in it and tear it out, so things would be right again. But he knew there was no lie to be found. His dreams of watching Liam grow and progress through life would forever be tainted by the undeniable fact that he was Brody's child. No matter how much John loved the boy, he knew he could never change that.

And he did love Liam. When he had taken the crying baby from Natalie at Llanfair, held him close, and hushed him, that connection had been undeniable as well. There was an unbreakable bond between them that transcended biological paternity. Liam belonged with him like Natalie did, always and forever.

John sighed. Thinking about this made him anxious, a sensation he didn't cope with well. He was a man of action, and not being able to take the action he desired frustrated him no end. He knew that if he were to move toward reconciling with Natalie there were issues that would need to be worked through, and that would bring back all the original pain of discovering the truth behind the lies she had perpetuated throughout her pregnancy. He didn't know whether it would be possible from them to make it past that step, or if in the end that would really be what she wanted. Maybe she would want to take a chance on Brody instead, starting fresh to build a real family. Hard as he tried, John couldn't imagine that, but he knew that didn't mean it wasn't possible. Anything was possible.

2

Natalie had made it clear to Brody that he could come and visit Liam if he chose; she wasn't going to prevent him from having contact with his son. However, she also let him know that she planned to reconcile with John, if that was possible – which she now thought it might be. Brody had taken her up on the offer a couple of times, but the connection that Liam had with John wasn't duplicated in interactions with his biological father. He didn't look at Brody with same adoring gaze that he had for John. Natalie made no mention of this, but Brody seemed to be aware of it nonetheless. And Brody's attention was mostly devoted to trying to reach the Jessica inside Tess, although at the present moment at least that seemed to be a lost cause.

Natalie had butted heads with Tess a couple times since her re-emergence, but they mostly kept their distance. Natalie knew that she wouldn't be able to mend her relationship with Jessica through Tess, who still hated her for what happened to Nash Brennan. Clearly Tess didn't consider Natalie's loss of Jared as equaling out her loss of Nash, but then Natalie doubted that there could ever be any level ground between them.

Natalie knew that it would take a lot of work to set things right with Jessica, but that was something she would never give up on. Her relationship with her twin was very important to her, and however long it took she would continue to fight to restore it to what it had been before she and Brody slept together and put this whole ugly course of events into action.

As much as she loved spending time with Liam, being at home so much – in her mother's home, that was – was making her stir crazy. She spent some time shopping and reading, but those things were hardly stimulating enough. Of course she also spent time daydreaming about John, which was often too stimulating, especially when she thought about that kiss he had surprised her with and the force of his passion as he pressed against her. She had never expected to experience that again, much less so soon after their break-up. The heat of that kiss should have set the room on fire, and if Liam hadn't been crying she might have pursed that passionate moment further…

Sitting on the bed in her room, Natalie sighed, stood, tossed her red hair and straightened the green shirt that hung down over the top of her jeans. John had told her to call him about having lunch on the weekend. It was already Thursday; she knew she should get going on that. But as soon as she picked up her cell phone she started to worry: What if John had changed his mind? What if that kiss had just been a leftover flash of passion that was now extinguished? What if he turned her down?

Natalie looked over at her mirror and saw the sheepish concern on her face. Is this who I've become? she wondered. Am I someone who is afraid to make a phone to the man I shared a bed with and tried to marry – twice? What was the worst that could happen, he would laugh at her and tell he hadn't really meant for her to call? Perhaps, but she couldn't imagine John doing that. If he wanted to turn her down he would just say he was busy or something, and she would have to live with that. But if she didn't call, if she didn't take that chance of believing he really wanted to see her again, he might think she wasn't interested and… And well, she just needed to make that call already.

Natalie pushed the speed dial key for John's cell phone and waited as the phone rang once, twice, three times…and then she finally heard his soft, quiet voice, "Hi."

"Hi," Natalie responded, feeling sort of foolish, but glad that he hadn't snapped at her or not answered at all. "I was wondering if you'd like to join me for lunch one day this weekend," she said, rolling her eyes at how dumb she sounded and really wondering if that dumbness was causing him to have second – or third or fourth – thoughts.

There was a beat of silence, and then John said, "Which day?"

Natalie released the breath she had been holding. "Saturday would be good for me," she said, although she would have cancelled any appointment she had on either day to be with him.

There was no hesitation this time: "OK," he said. "Should I pick you up there, or…"

"Why don't I come to your place…if that's OK," Natalie said. "We can walk somewhere from there." It was weird to be calling the apartment "your place" again after so many months of living there with him and bringing Liam there as his home.

"Yeah," John said. "And I think I would still probably rather avoid meeting up with your family."

"Me too sometimes," Natalie said, and she felt the brief warmth of his smile across the miles.

"Is one o'clock too late?" John asked.

"No, that's fine," Natalie said.

"Good," John said. After a pause he added, "How is Liam?"

"Good," Natalie said. She almost added something about Liam missing him again, but she didn't want to push things that seemed to be going OK on their own. "He keeps getting bigger," she said instead. "He's amazing to watch grow."

"He's a great kid," John said.

Natalie didn't like how it sounded like he was talking about a stranger. "Yes," she said.

"I'll see you Saturday then," John said.

"OK," Natalie said. It was her turn to pause; she was used to saying "I love you" in this sort of situation, but of course that wasn't appropriate anymore, even though it was true. "Good-bye," she said simply, not liking the simple formality of the word.

"Good-bye," John said, and the line went dead.

Natalie shut off her phone. At least the results of the call were the best that she could have hoped for in their new strained relationship. She just wished she could break through all the crap and take things back to how they had been. Because of the lies it had never been perfect, but it was as close to being there as they could have gotten at the time. Now that the truth was in the open, they could have everything that they wanted, the marriage and the family that was perfect for them. She wanted a way to shortcut the path to that future, but she didn't think that was possible. They were going to have to take every slow, awkward, and painful step on that long and winding path.

3

John spent Saturday morning cleaning up his place; it had pretty much become a sty without Natalie there. He hadn't realized how much she did to make the apartment livable; those types of things had never mattered much to him, but they were painfully obvious once she was gone. The worst of it, however, was the empty bed and the silent rooms that mocked him with pleasant memories. He missed her voice and Liam's cries and the sight of them there with him as his family.

But of course they had never really been that, his mind taunted. Natalie had lied to him, wanted to marry him, while passing off Brody's child as his. He faced that truth again, and for the first time found dullness in the resulting pain. And the more rational part of his mind took that moment to make its response known: So what? It was never that she hadn't loved him; even when she slept with Brody it was because of grief of losing him. And then she had wanted things to be right with him and for the child to be his. Where was the maliciousness in it? Where was the desire to harm him? There wasn't any. It was true that she had acted selfishly and perhaps a bit immaturely in not trusting him enough to tell him the full truth before she had to, but in general that was human nature. As a cop he understood it; people acted for their own self-protection to the furthest extent they could. And as a human being he understood that no one was going to willingly shatter something that was good in order to cause pain by unnecessarily exposing a past ugliness. But as a fiancé, as a man who thought he was embarking on a future with his own child and his trustworthy wife…it wasn't so easy to understand. As much as he wanted to put it behind them, part of him still couldn't, part of him still taunted about the fool she had made of him, and he couldn't completely silence that internal voice, not yet.

John showered and dressed in a black shirt and jeans, letting his dark hair air dry as he finished tidying the apartment. He could feel anxiety rattling his nerves, and he didn't like it; cops weren't supposed to get anxious. But this "date" – after all that was what it was – wasn't about being a cop. It was about being a wounded man trying to find peace again, and that was a role that had always been difficult for him.

At a couple minutes after one o'clock there was a knock at the door, a sturdy knock that for some reason made him smile. Natalie's spunk had always played into his attraction to her. He didn't want to see that dissipated, and didn't like that she had needed to shield parts of herself from him when they were together. He wasn't entirely sure how he would have reacted to the truth if it had come out earlier, but he liked to think that it would have been easier to bear if she had made the decision to tell him on her own. He had expected that kind of strength from her – that kind of belief and trust – and it had been disappointing to find out that it had never really been there. How could someone say "I love you" if there was no belief and trust in the person it was being said to?

John walked to the door and opened it, finding Natalie standing there in the hallway wearing a long black winter coat that suited the cold day, with a pink scarf around her neck. Her cheeks were pink too, and John wanted to kiss them and warm her up. "Maybe it's not such a good day to walk to a restaurant?" he said as he stepped aside to let her in, then closed the door.

"It's a little chilly," Natalie said. "I think it's supposed to snow."

John watched as she laid her coat on the arm of the sofa, exposing a soft pink sweater that closely hugged her body. He wanted to run his hands over that sweater, and slide them underneath…but instead they were having a discussion about the weather, which he had no interest in. "We can have something delivered," he said quietly.

Natalie looked at him with those beautiful, warm eyes that he had so missed seeing. It was good to see her meet his gaze; he was tired of the BS between them. "Sure," she said.

"What do you want to…"

"Pizza," she said, "with lots of toppings."

"OK," John said. He picked up her coat and gestured to the sofa. "Have a seat," he said. John hung the coat and scarf in the closet and then got the phone book, located their usual pizza delivery place, and ordered a large pizza with their favorite toppings. Then he got a couple of beers out of the fridge. He was well aware that there was something too comfortable about this situation, and it would be easy to forget what had separated them. And he knew without a doubt that was exactly what he wanted.

He walked back over to the sofa and handed Natalie one of the beers before sitting down about a foot away from her. "Where is Liam?" he asked.

"My mother is watching him," Natalie said. "I could have brought him over if…"

"No, it's too cold," John said, "and we should talk alone." He took a slug of beer and leaned back on the sofa, looking at the ceiling. "So what do we do?" he asked.

"What do you want to do?" Natalie replied. He looked over at her and saw the courage that it had taken for her to ask this simple question.

"What have I done to make you afraid of me?" John asked.

"I'm not…"

"Obviously you think you can't tell me things, and you're still afraid of how I'll react," John said.

"I'm just…afraid I'll get hurt," Natalie said. "I know that sounds selfish…"

"It sounds honest," John said.

"Yes, but I don't want this to be about just me," she said.

"It won't be," John replied. "I know I put all of the blame on you, and I shouldn't have done that. I'm just trying to figure out if there was something that I should have done to make it easier for you to tell me these things. I thought I was very aware and involved in the things that had to do with the pregnancy, but obviously I was missing things or at least denying them subconsciously. Maybe I should have kept pushing my concerns rather than letting them slide. I just kept thinking if there was something serious you needed to tell me you would…tell me."

"I should have," Natalie said. "I just didn't want to take the chance that it would ruin things."

"So it was better to lie to me," John said.

"No, it…well, yes, it seemed that way," Natalie said. "I thought if it stayed hidden it wouldn't matter. As far as I was concerned Liam was our son. What happened with Brody and me before you and I got back together didn't matter. The biology of the situation was just a mistake. He was ours, and we were a family. There was no reason that you had to be hurt by things that didn't really matter."

John looked at her, and he understood the reasoning, the idea that the lies kept both of them from being hurt. But that wasn't good enough. "The problem is that you made that decision for me," John said. "You had no right to do that. You had all the information and you kept it to yourself, shutting me out from being a full participant in the relationship. You stole my choices rather than risk that I would choose against what you wanted."

Natalie's eyes welled up with tears, and she stood up. "Maybe I should go," she said.

"Is that what you want to do?" John asked.

Natalie wiped her eyes with her hands. "I just don't see how we can get past this," she said. "What I did…I can't change that, or how I responded to it. It's over and done and no matter what I say or do now there will always be the history of those lies. And Liam will always be Brody's son. There's nothing I can do to fix those things."

"I know that," John said. "I would have known that if you had told me sooner, and I would have felt better about you telling me before all of this came to a breaking point. I don't expect you to work any miracles; I never did. It wasn't your responsibility to make things perfect. Bad things happen. I know that. But you were going to be my wife, and you should have told me these things no matter how much it hurt or what the consequences might be. And because you didn't do that, because you lied to me every day about that baby without ever planning to stop, I have trust issues with you that I never thought I would have."

There was a knock at the door, and John went to get the pizza from the delivery person. When he turned back to the room with the big box in his hands, Natalie had disappeared, most likely to the bathroom. He hadn't meant for things to get so emotional, or to target her so ruthlessly, but he didn't know how else to go about this. She had kept things from him by choice. How was he supposed to deal with that?

John got a couple of plates out of the kitchen cabinet and set them on the table beside the pizza box. He left it closed so that the heat didn't escape, and he sat down on one of the chairs and stared at it. He wondered if there was really a point in pursuing this, not because it could never be solved, but because it didn't need to be. Why beat on something that already happened? Why not decide whether there was a future now and get on with it? He shook his head. There were too many paths to take, and none of them seemed correct. None of them got all the poison out of his heart, which was what he wanted and needed to move on with Natalie. He didn't know what the antidote to that poison was.

He saw Natalie walk back into the room. "If you want me to leave…"

"No," John said, without having to think about it. "I can't eat all of this."

"I'm serious, John," Natalie said.

"I know," he replied. "I am too."

Natalie sat on the other chair. "I want you to know that, the decisions that I made, I wanted to protect you too," she said. "I didn't think it through the way you said, about taking your choices away. I just thought I was helping keep things the way they were supposed to be."

"Would you do it again?" John asked.

"I hope I would never…"

"Would you?" John asked. He reached over to open the pizza box and give her a moment to think. He knew he was grilling her like a police suspect, and that was the wrong way to be handling things. But, like her, he didn't know what the right way was, so he fell back on old habits.

"I would want us to be partners," Natalie said. "I would never want to keep anything from you. I would want us to be equals, so no, I wouldn't."

John took a slice of the pizza and started to eat it; after several seconds Natalie did the same. They ate in silence for a few minutes, and all John thought about was how good the pizza was and how glad he was that they hadn't gone out in the cold. "Thanks for picking this," he said.

"Llanfair isn't exactly big on pizza," Natalie replied. "And this place does the best pies anyway."

"Yeah," John said, picking up another slice. He thought about how many times they had done the pizza and beer thing followed by a trip to the bedroom. Now that had been the best. The thought of Natalie with Brody entered his mind, but he knew that wasn't fair; all the times they had been apart they had been with different people. But for him at least it was always different with her, better, softer, sweeter, _righter_.

"What?" Natalie asked.

"Do you like being with me, or is it just something that happens?" John asked.

"Of course I like being with you…"

"I'm just wondering if we make the mistake of confusing what seems comfortable with what is right," John said.

"It never felt comfortable," Natalie said.

"Really?" John said. "Never?" Her eyes met his, and he could tell that after a moment that she understood what he was referring to.

"I don't know that I would call that comfortable," Natalie said. "Enjoyable or pleasurable, maybe, but comfortable doesn't really sum it up."

John smiled. "It was good," he said.

"It was very good," Natalie said. She took another slice.

"Yeah, it was very good," John said. He emptied his beer and set the bottle on the table. "Do you want to try again?" he asked.

Natalie swallowed and set her slice down on her plate. "Lunch?" she said.

"You and me," John said.

"Seriously?" Natalie asked.

"Seriously," John said.

"Yeah, I would," Natalie said. "Do you think we could?"

"I think we could try," John said.

"You still…want to?" Natalie said.

"I want what I thought we had – you, me, and Liam," John said.

"I want that too," Natalie said. "And I promise…"

"I'm not asking for promises," John said, "not yet." His cell phone started to ring and walked over to the counter where he had left it. After a brief conversation with a cop at the station, he ended the call.

"Duty calls," Natalie said, standing up. "I can clean this up."

"I don't expect you to clean my place," John said. "Besides there's a storm headed this way, and you should get back to Liam before it gets dangerous."

"I miss this being our place," Natalie said.

"So do I," John said. He put the remaining slices of pizza on a couple plates and put them in the fridge.

And then there was a moment when both of them did nothing but look at the other. It was a long moment when neither of them moved, but John sensed that something could – or maybe should – happen, so he waited for it. Finally she walked over to him, and John waited a bit longer for her words or her touch, mostly the latter, because he had been aching for it since the last time he kissed her. She came close to him, close enough for him to feel their attraction like an urgent physical force. "I love you, John," she said. "I'll always love you." She slid her arms around him slowly, and they moved quietly into a gentle kiss.

John touched her hair. "Someone else can cover the case," he said softly, more serious than joking.

"I'm sure they need you," Natalie said. She withdrew her body from his, and straightened his shirt. "I know what that's like," she said. She got her coat and scarf and put them on. "I'll see you soon," she said, and she left the apartment.

John stood there for a moment staring at the door, and then he smiled to himself before grabbing his jacket so he could leave as well.


	4. Chapter 4

What Love Is: Part 4

By Morganperidot

1

Natalie woke suddenly with her heart already pounding. For a moment she was disoriented; she had been deep in a dream where she and John were making love. But then she heard a cry on the baby monitor that made her jump out of bed and run to the nursery as fast as she could. When she got to Liam she saw that his face was bright red. She felt his skin and found that he was burning up with fever. Terrified, she grabbed the nursery phone and dialed 911. The dispatcher told her to wait for the ambulance and not try to drive to the hospital; there had been quite a bit of snow overnight and it wasn't safe to drive. That made Natalie even more anxious, but she tried to stay as calm as possible for Liam's sake.

She took Liam in her room and laid him on the bed as she quickly dressed in the first things she could grab: a gray sweatshirt and jeans. She didn't bother with her makeup or hair, just took her purse and went down the stairs with Liam. The ambulance had arrived, and Viki met her at the door. Natalie explained what was going on as she handed Liam to the EMT who knocked on the door. She then threw on a coat and went with them to the ambulance, barely noticing the snow and freezing temperature.

Inside the ambulance beside Liam, Natalie didn't realize she was crying until a tear dropped on her purse as she searched in it for her phone. She wiped away the wet streaks and then pushed the number for John's phone. She didn't second-guess her instinct to call him; she knew it was the right thing to do.

"Natalie?" John said in answer.

"Liam's sick," Natalie said. "The ambulance is…"

"I'll meet you at the hospital," John said.

"John, the roads…"

"I'll be fine," John said. "Just take care of Liam."

"Be careful," Natalie said.

"I will," John said. "I'll see you there."

Natalie held the phone close as she looked at her suffering child. Somehow knowing that John would be there made her feel like things would turn out all right.

2

The roads were indeed bad, and John had to force himself to focus so that he didn't wipe out and wind up in the hospital for a reason other than being there for Liam. He turned on the car radio and listened to it even though most of the songs annoyed him. He didn't want to think of that spike of fear that been driven into his heart when he saw Natalie's name on that ringing phone in the middle of the night. He had known it was about Liam. And he had been immediately terrified. It hadn't mattered one bit that the boy wasn't biologically his. All that mattered was that it was Liam.

John parked illegally by the emergency room entrance and hopped out of the car. When someone said he couldn't park there he just flashed his badge and kept walking. He didn't really care if car got towed. All he cared about was Liam and Natalie. He finally spotted Natalie in a waiting room staring forlornly at the door to the examination rooms. He walked over to her, but her thoughts were clearly elsewhere because she never looked in his direction. "Natalie," he said softly, and when she finally looked at him he saw the redness of her face and the streaks where recent tears had fallen. He held out his hands to her, and a moment later she was in his arms.

"What is it?" John asked. "What happened?"

"I don't know," Natalie said. "He was fine when I went to bed. He was fine…"

"OK," John said. "What did the EMTs say?"

"They think it's an infection," Natalie said. "He has a fever, he was making these sounds…" Tears filled her eyes and started to spill out.

"They'll fix it here," John said

"I don't know what I did wrong," Natalie said. "I don't know…"

John put his hands gently on her shoulders. "Don't do that," he said. "Don't blame yourself. You love him, and that is what he needs most, along with your strength. There's no need for blame."

"What if this is my fault?" Natalie said.

"It's not," John said.

"I've made so many mistakes," Natalie said.

"So has everyone," John said. "This isn't some kind of punishment for that."

A doctor headed over to them. "Ms. Banks," he said. "We've started your son on antibiotics; he seems to be handling that well, and his fever is going down."

"Will he be OK?" Natalie said.

"If we assume that the infection hasn't spread to…"

"Lieutenant John McBain," John said, holding out his hand. "How about we don't make any assumptions?"

The doctor grasped John's hand briefly but firmly. "I appreciate your directness, Lieutenant McBain," he said. "But sometimes medicine isn't always so straightforward. At this point it doesn't appear that the infection has spread to a vital organ, and as I said, Liam is responding to the medication. We'd like to keep him in observation until we have determined what is causing the infection and its extent."

"How long would that be?" Natalie said.

"It may take several hours," the doctor replied. "With your agreement, of course."

"I want whatever is best for him," Natalie said. "Can we see him?"

"Of course," the doctor said, "but we ask that you just look in and not move him at this time."

"OK," Natalie said. "I just want to see him." John heard the fear in her voice, and he reached over and grasped her hand with his, entwining his fingers with hers. She looked at him, and he met her gaze as he tried to send some of his strength to her through the connection of their hands. He was scared too, but he was doing his best to set that aside as much as he could in order to support her.

They followed a nurse who took them back where Liam was. When they reached the window to the room he was in, Natalie squeezed John's hand hard, and from what John could see of the side of her face as she looked at the baby she had no idea she had done it. Under other circumstances he might have smiled or even made a joke about her amazon grip, but this was not that type of moment. He looked through the window at Liam, and his heart broke, seeing that strong, sturdy little boy looking so small in a baby's hospital bed. He has to be OK, John thought. No matter what, he has to be OK.

"He looks so alone," Natalie said, a fresh tear sliding down her cheek.

"I'm sure there will be nurses around," John said.

"That's not the same," Natalie replied. "He needs me."

"I know," John said.

Natalie looked at him and smiled slightly. Then she looked down at their still-joined hands and released her grip. "Thank you for coming here in the middle of the night," she said. "I probably shouldn't have…"

"It's OK," John said. Then he added, "I care about him."

"I know, but if you ever feel like I'm overstepping…"

"I don't," John said quietly. You should be my wife, and Liam should be my son, he thought. There shouldn't be any boundaries between us to overstep.

The nurse showed them back out to the waiting room, and made sure that the hospital had the correct contact information. But rather than go anywhere, Natalie just sat down on a seat in the waiting room. John sat beside her. Neither of them spoke for more than a minute. Finally Natalie said, "I can't do this. I can't leave him like this." John put his hand over hers where it rested on her leg. "You have to go to work…"

"I want to be here," John said. "Unless you want me to go." He looked at her, and she looked back at him.

"No," Natalie said. "I just…I don't want you to feel obligated."

"I don't," John said.

"John…"

"Let's leave it there for now, OK?" John said.

"OK," Natalie replied softly.

He looked at her for a long moment, and saw that without all the make-up and glossy hair she looked so young, but despite that, she had that toughness that he had seen from the first moment. I love you, John thought, but he didn't say it, not yet. But, he knew that he wouldn't be able to hold it back much longer. Every day he needed her more than the last, and at this moment he needed her desperately. It wasn't until his stomach growled loudly enough for both of them to hear that he remembered he hadn't eaten any breakfast. "Do you want to get something to eat?" he asked. "You have to be as starving as I am, right?"

"I can't leave Liam," Natalie said.

"We can just go to the hospital cafeteria," John said. "Look, they have our cell phone numbers. They'll contact you if anything happens. They'll take care of him, and he'll get the rest he needs to get better."

"John, I…"

"Natalie, you have to keep your strength up," John said. "I'm serious. You have to eat something." Natalie looked back at the door that led to the room where Liam was. John knew she wanted to go back there and pick him up and hold him and tell him that everything would be all right while rocking him in her arms. He knew that, because that was what he wanted to do too. And if he didn't take his grumbling stomach in another direction he was going to be leading the way back to Liam. "I'll buy," John said.

"OK," Natalie said, but she seemed more than a little reluctant in her agreement. John took her hand in his again, gently, and when he stood she stood with him.

"He's going to be OK," John said. "He's your son; he's strong."

"He's yours too," Natalie said.

John didn't respond; what he felt told him that was true. "Let's get some doughnuts," he said.

3

Natalie had been silent for a while, just staring at the chocolate-frosted cake doughnut on the paper plate on the white table in the hospital cafeteria. John had eaten a couple doughnuts and drank a cup of coffee during that silence. She didn't know what he was thinking, but her thoughts had focused on one idea. "John," she said. He looked at her with his soft, intelligent eyes, the same eyes that Liam had. She knew she had to ask him. "Would you be willing to do a test?" she asked.

"What test?" John asked. She waited a moment, and then she saw a shadow of understanding cross his features. "Why?" he asked.

"I just…I have doubts about the one I had done, what the results said," Natalie said.

"I wish I were Liam's father," John said. "But I don't think doing another test would make that true."

"I look at him, and I see you…"

"You see what you want to see," John said, and Natalie figured that was probably at least partially true.

He looked away, and Natalie had second thoughts about pursuing this. They had been reconnecting; if she pushed this, it might break that new bond. But she needed to be sure; she needed to be absolutely sure, and she wasn't. She wasn't absolutely sure that Liam was Brody's son, and she needed to be. "I won't insist that you do this," Natalie said. "I understand that you don't want to. I just…I still think there is a possibility that there was some other mix-up with the tests. If we do this and it comes out the same, then we know and we go on from there. It's up to you."

"I don't want to pretend anymore," John said. "I can't do that."

"I know," Natalie said. "That isn't what I want. I just want to clear things up once and for all, to confirm what we already know to be true. That's it."

John was silent for several seconds, and he didn't look at her. Natalie thought about telling him to forget it, that it was a dumb idea and biological paternity didn't matter anyway. But it was out there now, and it was too late to say those things. "OK," John said. "We'll do another test with my DNA and Liam's. But that is it, and this will never be pursued again."

"OK," Natalie said.

John looked at her. "And I see the results when you open them," he said.

"Yes," Natalie said.

"OK," John said. He looked down at her plate. "Are you going to eat that doughnut?"


	5. Chapter 5

What Love Is: Part 5

By Morganperidot

1

Natalie had finally relaxed enough in her uncomfortable bright orange waiting room chair at the emergency room of the Llanview Hospital to let her eyes drift closed, when John saw a nurse headed in their direction. He stood slowly, and headed to cut the nurse off, as though he had to protect Natalie from an attack, when most likely what the nurse had to tell them about Liam was good news. It had to be good news, after all, because Liam had to be OK. The boy had only been around a short while, but John could no longer imagine his life without that strong, healthy child.

"How is he?" John asked the nurse. The nurse glanced over at Natalie. "She's resting," he said. "You can tell me; I'll let her know." He had a bad vibe from the nurse, and he didn't know if it was just because he knew she would rather be talking to Liam's mother. "I'm a cop," he said, not knowing if that would make things better or worse.

"He's stable," the nurse said. "The cause of the infection is still unknown, but it is under control."

"That's good," John said.

"He's recovering now, but it's possible the problem could return at a later date," the nurse said. "He should be closely monitored until the source of the infection is determined."

"Meaning it could be something serious," John said.

"It's unclear at this time," the nurse said. "At the moment he's recovering nicely."

"So he can go home?" John said.

"We're running a couple more tests, and then he should be ready," the nurse said.

"OK," John said. The nurse started to walk away, and he almost let her go. But John had promised Natalie he would go around the DNA issue one last time. "How would I get a paternity test done?" he asked. The nurse looked surprised for a moment, but then she directed him to someone who could help. He asked whether it would be better to wait a while after Liam recovered, but the nurse said that it wouldn't be a problem for him. So, there was no reason to put it off. John decided that he might as well do it right away.

2

"Hey, someone wants you to hold him."

For a moment Natalie didn't know where she was, and she was shocked to hear those words so close to her in John's soft tones. She was more than willing to oblige though, so she opened her eyes and prepared to reach out to him – when she saw him fully dressed in a chair beside her, in a room with other people, holding her baby. Then she remembered – Liam, the hospital, an infection, and John so close and steady through the whole ordeal. She took Liam into her arms. "They released him?" she asked, looking closely at her child's face, which looked…happy.

"Yeah, the antibiotics did the trick," John said.

Natalie looked at him, and saw that there was more to it than that. "What's wrong?" she asked.

John sighed. "They don't know the cause of the infection," he said, "so there is the possibility it could come back. They said that you should bring him in for regular monthly check-ups with his pediatrician for the next few months."

Natalie looked down at Liam, and there was a smile on his face that warmed her troubled heart. What if there was something seriously wrong with him, she wondered. What if he had an illness that would follow him his whole life? She didn't want to think about that; it was too much to bear.

"He's going to be OK," John said.

"You don't know that," Natalie said. "The doctors didn't say that."

"I know you," John said. "I know how strong you are. You're part of him, and that part is going to get him through whatever he has to face."

"And having you as his father," Natalie said, taking the risk that it was pushing too hard to say this. The problem was that if she didn't push it, at some point the right moment for pushing it would just slip away, and Liam would lose from his life the man who was meant to raise him.

John looked away. "While you were resting I had a sample taken for the paternity test," he said quietly. "They need your approval to take the sample from Liam."

"Thank you for doing that," Natalie said. "I know it wasn't easy."

John looked back at her. "We have to keep the reason for this in mind," he said. "It's just to confirm what we already know. We're not expecting the results to miraculously change." His gaze shifted to Liam. "Liam is Brody's son…"

"Brody is biologically Liam's father," Natalie said, adding, "most likely."

John brought his gaze back to her. "The DNA test showed it," he said. "There's no reason to think that anyone tampered with that test."

"I know," Natalie said, though she still held on to the little bit of hope that told her that wasn't really true. If Vimal changed Jessica's test, if Marty was in the hospital…there was always the possibility that her test could have been changed as well, or maybe the test was contaminated somehow – or who knows what. "I still think it is a good idea to put this to rest for good," she said.

"And I've agreed," John said.

Natalie didn't like the standoffish vibe that settled at that moment between them. "Would you wait for a few minutes while the sample is taken?" she asked.

"Yeah, I figured I could give you a ride back to Llanfair," John said. "Unless you were planning on hopping an ambulance back there."

Natalie smiled briefly. "I think one of those a day is enough for me," she said. She stood up and took Liam over to a nurse and found out where she could have the sample taken. As she headed in that direction, she glanced back at John. He was leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed, but she didn't think he was getting any rest.

3

John felt the fluttering in his stomach, and he told himself it was nausea from being worried about Liam, lack of decent food, and not getting enough sleep. But he knew better; he knew what it was. It was anxiety about the paternity test. As much as he said he didn't think there was any possibility that another test would bring results that were any different from those that they already had, he still thought that somehow it might be possible that this latest test might show that he was Liam's biological father.

As the days passed, the fluttering didn't go away; if anything, it got worse. There were times when John wished he hadn't agreed to take the test, but he knew from the moment she brought it up that if he didn't do it there would always be the uncertainty – and the hope – about Liam's paternity. If they were going to move past this, which he truly wanted to do, the issue had to be buried once and for all.

Sitting in the desk chair in his office, John sighed. This whole mess had become beyond exhausting, and he didn't want to fight with it anymore. He was distracted during the day and getting very little sleep at night. He needed Natalie and Liam back in his life, and he was tired of pretending that he didn't. He had to face the facts; it didn't matter whether Natalie had lied or Liam wasn't his kid – what did matter was that they weren't there with him the way he wanted and needed them to be. And life was too short not to reach out and grasp something so dear and so close. No relationship was ever going to be perfect, but being with Natalie and Liam was closest he had ever come. And he wanted them back.

His cell phone rang, and John looked at the caller ID, saw Natalie's name, and smiled. Time to rock and roll, he thought. "Hey," he said.

"Hey," Natalie replied. "The results are in at the hospital. I thought you might want to pick them up."

"OK," John said. "Meet me at my place in a half hour."

"John, whatever it says…"

"Let's just see what it says first," John said. "And then we'll decide what to do about it, OK?"

"OK," Natalie said. "I'll see you soon."

4

Natalie stood out in the hallway in front of John's door for a moment, knowing that this could be the very last few seconds of hope that John was really Liam's father. Yes, there was still a small piece of that hope inside of her, waiting to be expunged forever in a few minutes time. She closed her eyes and thought back over the months of her pregnancy, remembering John's joy in seeing their baby grow, his baby, his son. "I'd give anything," she whispered to the universe. "Please, let this be the real truth." She knocked on the door, and John opened it. He wore his usual black shirt and his dark hair was rumpled. He stepped aside to let her into the apartment. Natalie walked in and immediately saw the large manila envelope on the coffee table – as well as 2 open beers. She walked over, picked up a beer, and sat down on the sofa. "Did you look at it?" she asked as John walked over to the sofa.

John picked up the other beer and sat beside her behind the table where the envelope rested. "No, not yet," he said quietly.

"John, I want you to know, that more than anything in this world I wish Liam was your son," Natalie said. "That was all I ever wanted. That was why I did the things I did."

John held out this beer. "To wishes," he said, and Natalie clinked her bottle with his. They both drank in silence for a moment, and then John set his bottle down next to the envelope. "Let's do this," he said, and he picked up the envelope and tore open the flap without hesitating. Natalie just looked at his face as he pulled the papers out and read them over, his gaze quickly dropping down the page, until he just sat there staring at the bottom.

"John, I'm sorry…"

"Has this been tampered with?" John said.

"Why?" Natalie asked, taking the papers from him, and scanning down to the results at the bottom, that clearly said, unequivocally, in no uncertain terms, the single, all-caps, bold-font words, JOHN MCBAIN: MATCH. She looked back up and checked the names, dates of the samples, and laboratory. "Oh my God," she said.

"Is this a trick?" John asked.

"I swear I had nothing to do with this – and I really doubt my father is messing with any more DNA tests," Natalie said. She looked at his face and saw that he wasn't happy. "Don't you see what this means?" she said. "You're Liam's father, not Brody!"

"That isn't what this means," John said. He finished off his beer, set it on the table, and stood up. "Now we have two different sets of results. All this means is that Brody is going to have to be tested again."

"You're a match…"

"According to this," John said. "According to the other one Brody was."

Natalie felt her anger starting to bubble up inside of her. "That had to be wrong," she said. "The tests in that lab were messed with, not this one. God, John, do you even care anymore?"

He turned to her then, and she saw the dark fire in his eyes that had been so common after their break-up, accompanied with the kind of hurtful words that were likely to follow now as well. "Yes, I care," he said in his measured, quiet tones. But there was a different vibe around him, and somehow in those three small words Natalie saw just how deeply he was affected by this moment, and she without hesitating she did what came naturally, moving closer to him and touching him, placing her hand on his arm. John looked at her hand but made no effort to move it. He brought his gaze back to her eyes. "I just can't believe this until there's some additional verification," he said. "I can't…lose Liam like this again."

"I know," Natalie said. She moved closer still, and placed her hand to his side and then his hip. She waited a few seconds to see if he would withdraw from the intimacy, but he didn't back away. "You won't lose Liam," she said firmly. "And you won't ever lose me." Their gazes locked briefly, and then John's lips met hers in a soft, warm, achingly perfect kiss. He pressed her to him as that kiss deepened, before his mouth slipped away to trail kisses down her neck. Natalie slid a hand into his hair. "I need you," she said. "Now." John slid his hands down and under her green shirt, then lifted it up and over her head. And then he swept her up in her arms and carried her to his bed.


	6. Chapter 6

What Love Is: Part 6

By Morganperidot

1

Although it was morning, the bedroom of John's apartment was dark. Natalie could barely make out his features from where she was lying in bed beside him. After what had happened between them – the pregnancy, the lies, the DNA test, and the incomplete weddings – it seemed surreal to be so close to him again. There had been a point when she had believed with certainty that it would never be possible again. And even now she doubted the truth of it.

"John?" she said quietly. She turned on her side and touched his right arm lightly with her fingertips.

"I'm here," he replied, his voice also quiet. He moved closer until his warm body pressed against hers and their lips met softly. Natalie touched his chest and allowed herself, at least for that moment, to believe in the pleasure of his presence.

"I'm glad," Natalie said. John smiled and kissed her again, this time longer and deeper, before moving aside again.

"Me too," John said. "So where is Liam?"

"He has the Buchanan clan watching him," Natalie said, before taking a chance on pushing things again. "The only place better would be here with his daddy."

"We don't know for sure who that is yet," John said.

"I know," Natalie said, though his name next to the word MATCH on the latest DNA results was proof enough for her. John moved a lock of hair from her face. "You can believe this, John," she said. Natalie tilted her head toward the doorway to the bedroom. "Those papers out there are the correct ones."

"Why those and not the others?" John said. "There's as much likelihood that…"

"We're not talking about just any child here, John," Natalie said. "We're talking about Liam. You've held him in your arms and looked in his eyes. Can you truly say that he isn't yours?"

John looked at her for a moment in silence, and then he got off the bed. Natalie mentally kicked herself for going at this so hard. She just needed him to admit the truth and be happy about it, like he had been before all of the lies had blown up in their faces. She knew that John turning out to actually be Liam's father didn't excuse the lies she had told him, but at least it meant that things would turn out the way they should have.

Across the room John was getting dressed. "I don't want to talk about this again until we have another DNA comparison done between Liam and Brody," he said.

"I understand that," Natalie said, "I just…"

"Later," John said, softly but firmly.

"OK," Natalie said. She sighed. She wasn't looking forward to going around this with Brody. He was in bad shape after numerous clashes with a brutally uninterested Tess. He had left the police force and spent a lot of time drinking and hanging out with that skank Kelly Cramer. Bizarre match-up, but Natalie didn't really care. At least Kelly wasn't going after her brother Joey, and Brody wasn't around Liam anymore.

"I'll talk to Brody," John said, after he pulled on a black shirt.

"I can do that," Natalie said, while reassembling her own outfit.

"I know you can…"

"But you don't trust me," Natalie said. "That's still the issue here, isn't it?"

"Trust is going to be an issue," John said, "but that wasn't why I said I would do it. I don't think you should be around Brody right now…"

"Why, because you think I'm going to jump in the sack again with him too?" Natalie asked. "Maybe I can get pregnant again and not know whose kid it is. Is that the kind of tramp you think I am?" John didn't respond, and that just made her angrier. "I'll tell you something, John McBain," she said with all the fury that she feeling, "I am not some floozy who will just hang around you for the opportunity to roll in the hay. If that is all you're interested in, you can find someone else to play that game with." She stormed out of the bedroom and heard him following behind on her heels.

John grabbed her arms, and she turned to him with what she hoped was fire in her eyes. "Who do you think you're talking to?" he asked. "When have I ever treated you like some floozy? I wanted you to be my wife and the mother of my children. I have never thought of you as some kind of tramp, and I would never imagine that you would go to bed with Brody again or conceive another child with him."

"Another child," Natalie said, not pulling out of his grip but not backing down either. "You still believe that Liam is his. Are you certain that isn't what you really want?"

"Maybe Liam would be better off that way because it doesn't seem like this thing between you and me is something we can fix," John said.

"This 'thing'?" Natalie said. "Is that how you see our relationship?"

"What relationship?" John said.

Shocked, Natalie just stared at him for a moment, and then she stormed over to the front door of his apartment. She turned to face him across the room. "The bottom line with this is that Liam and I do not need either you or Brody," she said fiercely, "and we are better off without both of you." She yanked open the door and slammed it shut behind her.

2

Wait a minute, John thought, what just happened here? Less than a half hour earlier they had been lying in bed together completely at peace with one another, and now they were separated again because of some stupid misunderstanding and a lot of misplaced passion? John closed his eyes and shook his head. That was just totally insane. She made him crazy…and dammit how he loved her, even now, maybe especially now. He got his cell phone and called hers, not expecting her to answer, but waiting for her voicemail. "Whatever the hell it was I just said, I didn't mean it," he said. "I want to deal with Brody because I don't think you should have to. He's out of control, and he could be dangerous. Let me do this." He knew it wasn't close to the apology he would have to make for that relationship quip, but that would have to come later, in person. Now he had to deal with Brody.

After losing Jessica and leaving the police force, Brody had taken an apartment in the seedy part of town. As tough as he was, John was on edge parking in that neighborhood, and he moved quickly toward the dilapidated building where Brody was living. John had spoken with Brody briefly on the phone before heading over to make sure he would be there. He hadn't mentioned Liam or Natalie, just that there were things that he wanted to discuss. Brody had sounded drunk again, and something about that made John angry. If Brody did turn out to be Liam's father he was going to have to straighten out and go stone-cold sober before John was going to let him be anywhere near that child, whether Natalie wanted him around at that point or not.

There wasn't much security to speak of at the entranceway to Brody's building, so John had no problem getting in and up to the floor of his apartment. John had to wind his way through the web of stains on the floor of the hallway, and hold his breath to keep from being overwhelmed with the various stenches that hung almost visibly in the air. He was close to nausea by the time he reached the door to Brody's place. He knocked hard and prayed that what was on the other side of the door wasn't as bad as what was on this side.

Brody opened the door and peered out at him. "Well, well, well, if it isn't Johnny McBain," he said. "To what do I owe the honor, Lieutenant?"

"I need to ask a favor of you," John said.

"Of course," Brody said, "come on in and ask away." He opened the door wider, and John walked past him into the tiny apartment. The place was cluttered with clothes, beer bottles, and pizza boxes on the floor and most of the other surfaces, creating an odor all their own, which was at least somewhat better than the one in the hall. "What can I do for you?" Brody asked, and his tone, besides obviously indicating his drunkenness, also held an edge of bitterness behind a façade of cheerfulness.

"How are you?" John asked.

"Fantastic, Lieutenant," Brody said. "How are you?"

"Is there something I can do for you?" John said.

"Yeah, why don't you turn back time, Superman," Brody said. "But then you didn't come here for me, right? You needed something from me?"

John's memory flashed on Natalie and that hurt in her eyes when he had said, "What relationship?" He might as well have stabbed her in the heart, because that statement had been a kill shot. And the worst thing was that he had known that before he said it and couldn't stop himself from doing it. He forced himself to focus on the DNA test instead; losing focus with Brody couldn't possibly be a good thing. He decided just getting straight to the point was the best way to go about this. "There's a possibility that the DNA test that was done on Liam – the paternity test – might have been tampered with," he said.

Brody laughed and grabbed a half-full beer bottle off a table. He held it out to John as if in a toast. "Sure, why not?" he said.

"I did another test," John continued, "my DNA and Liam's. It showed us to be a match."

Brody had drunk the remaining beer in the bottle while John spoke and when he finished Brody heaved the bottle into a wall where it shattered and the glass shards fell like jagged raindrops on a pizza box on the floor. "So that's how it is now?" he said. "I wind up with nothing? No Jessica, no Ryder, and now no Liam?" He walked away from John. "I don't think so," he said. John realized a moment too late that Brody was reaching for a gun; he saw the flash of the barrel and dove out of the way just a second too late. His mind registered the hot sting of the bullet hitting his left shoulder, but he ignored it as he moved in on Brody and wrestled him to the ground, his hand firm on the gun, keeping the barrel away from both of them while he tried to get it out of Brody's grasp. After a minute or so of grappling John was able to knock Brody out and take the gun…along with a handful of hair from Brody's head.

John stood up and looked at this ruined man who had been his friend and cursed darkly. How had they all come to this? he wondered. He knew he was going to have to lie about how the gun had been discharged; if he said Brody fired at him that would send the man even deeper into a spiral of destruction. John looked at his bloody shoulder and cursed again. How much worse did this nightmare need to get?

3

Natalie's blood was still boiling when she got home to Llanfair. She went straight to the nursery and was stunned to find her sister there holding Liam. "Jessica?" she said.

"Nope, I'm still me," Tess said.

Natalie walked over to her. "Give me my son," she said.

Tess held Liam closer. "He likes me," she said. "We're buddies."

"I'm not in the mood for your crap right now," Natalie said. "Give me my son right now, or I will take him from you and then kick your ass right out Llanview."

Tess smiled. "My, my," she said. "Maybe we aren't so different after all, twinee." She held Liam out to Natalie, who took him as quickly as she carefully could and then stepped back away from Tess.

"Get out of here," Natalie said.

"Come now," Tess said. "Don't you want to chat, sister to sister? Seems like you have something on your mind."

"You aren't my sister," Natalie said.

"Maybe I am, or maybe I'm not," Tess said. "But that doesn't mean I can't give you a bit of advice."

"I'd rather get my advice from a telephone psychic," Natalie said, shielding Liam protectively with her arms. "Now get out of this house; you know you aren't wanted here."

"And you know I don't care what the Buchanans want," Tess said. Regardless, she walked to the door of the nursery, but didn't leave until she had given her final shot. "Here's my advice, sister: Don't waste any more time and energy on John McBain. That one will never really forgive you. Believe me, I see the kindred spirit in him; after all, I'll never forgive you either." And then she was gone.

Natalie continued to hold Liam for several minutes before finally setting him down in his bed. She refused to let what Tess had said add further fuel to her already raging fire as far as John was concerned. She knew better than that. Besides the most important thing was clearing up this paternity issue once and for all. After that, they could work things out based on whatever the final results were. If there was anything to work out anyway, as John didn't seem to think they even had a relationship.

"Bastard," she said. Well, she would take care of things with Brody, whether he wanted her to or not. She got her phone of her purse and was about to punch in Brody's number when she saw the note on the device for one missed call and one voicemail from….John. She wanted to just ignore his message, but she decided it was probably best not to, especially as he had left it right after she stormed out of his apartment, as evidenced by the time stamp. She steeled her nerves and then pressed play for the voicemail. She was surprised by John's words and his tone – not entire apologetic, but certainly regretful. And she was troubled by the idea that John thought Brody might be dangerous and that he was willing to put himself into that type of situation to protect her. Despite the fact that she knew she should still be angry at him, she punched the number on the phone that would connect her to him – just to be sure that he was OK. He didn't answer his phone, and Natalie ended the call when his voicemail picked up. She knew it was ridiculous to think that something had happened to him; after all, she had just seen him. But she was also aware of how quickly things could change and how easy it was to lose someone she loved. And there was no doubt that she still loved John, despite whatever dumb thing he had said, she knew that he loved her. She wasn't willing to lose that again so soon.

Natalie called a couple of cops she had been friends with at the station. The first one said he hadn't seen John that day. The second, a young female detective, told her exactly what she had been hoping not to hear: that John had been shot and was at the hospital. The detective didn't know many details, though she didn't think it was serious. Natalie thanked her and hung up. After she found someone to look after Liam, she left for the hospital.

4

At the hospital John turned over the hair sample from Brody to be matched against Liam's DNA. He saw it safely taken by a lab technician before he let a doctor take a look at his shoulder, trying not to wince as he pulled off his bloodstained shirt. The bullet had left a deep-grazing wound in his flesh but had not lodged there. John tried not to show how relieved he was; he had no desire to go under the knife for some ridiculous shot Brody took at him while out of his mind with booze. The doctor prescribed some antibiotics and turned him over to a nurse to clean and dress the wound.

When John walked back out into the waiting room he was surprised to see Natalie standing there talking with another nurse. She wasn't facing him, but he knew that long, silky red hair anywhere. His fingers twitched with the need to touch it. She turned, and he saw concern in her beautiful eyes. His first thought was that something else had happened with Liam, and he walked quickly over to her. "Is Liam OK?" he asked.

"He's fine," Natalie said. "I heard you were shot…"

"It's just a flesh wound," John said. He saw that her gaze was on his bloodstained shoulder. "It's nothing," he said.

"You were hurt because of me…again," Natalie said. "I'm sorry."

"I'm fine," John said. "My pride was hurt the most. I should have known he was going for a gun."

"You shouldn't have had to be there," Natalie said. "I should have gone…"

"No," John said quickly. "Things could have turned out much worse." Silence descended between them for a moment. "I had to take Brody in to jail," John said finally. "I doubt there will be any charges, since I'm not going to pursue it. He needs some serious help though. He's really hit rock bottom."

"Did you mention the DNA test?" Natalie asked.

"I mentioned the possibility he might not be Liam's father," John said. "That was when things got out of control. He's lost everything; he didn't want to lose the connection to Liam too."

"So he's not going to give a sample for another test?" Natalie said.

John looked away for a moment. "I took care of that," he said.

"What? You…"

"We can talk about that later," John said. "Right now I want to tell you that…"

Natalie's phone had started ringing. "I'm sorry," she said. She looked at the caller ID. "I should take this," she said.

"OK," John said. "I can wait."

Natalie smiled. "Thank you," she said. "Hi, Mom, what's up?" she said into the phone. John saw the smile instantly disappear from her face, and his own stomach dropped as he once again thought of Liam. Natalie looked at him and seemed to read his mind as she shook her head and mouthed what looked to him to be "Bree". "How could that happen?" she asked. "OK, I'm on my way. I'll let John know." She ended the call and dropped the phone in her purse.

"What's going on?" John asked.

"Bree is missing," Natalie said. "My mom thinks that Tess may have taken her." She hesitated for a moment, then said, "Would you…"

"Yes," John said, and they left the hospital together.


	7. Chapter 7

What Love Is: Part 7

By Morganperidot

1

"We should take a break," John said.

They had been searching Llanfair for clues to Bree's disappearance for hours, and hadn't found anything that would lead them to Tess or where she might have taken the girl. It was hard to get anywhere, when there was so much of Jessica around the house. As different as Jessica might be from Tess, as far as investigating and forensics went, a lot about them was too much the same to differentiate.

"We have to find Bree," Natalie said, looking around the girl's room again.

"We will," John said. "But we've already looked in here three times."

"Then we'll look a fourth time and a fifth time and a fiftieth time if we have to," Natalie said. "We have to find her."

John understood what was going on here perhaps better than Natalie herself did. She clearly felt guilty for the re-emergence of Tess after Jessica's shocks about the one-night stand with Brody and Liam's supposed paternity, and in turn she blamed herself for whatever Tess did. If Bree was hurt, he knew Natalie would never forgive herself. John didn't think Tess would harm Bree, especially since Jessica and Bess were somewhere inside her to stop something like that from happening, but it was possible that Tess would be careless enough to allow something to happen by accident. John understood that the longer Bree was gone the more likely it was that she would be in danger. It was all very clear to him, but he also knew that doing things they had already done just to do something wasn't going to get them any closer to finding Bree.

John shut the door to the hallway and walked over to Natalie. She was so focused on finding something that she literally jumped when he touched her arm. "John, please, I have to…"

He turned her toward him. "What you have to do right now is listen to me," John said.

"We're wasting time," Natalie said. "We can't stop looking. We can't…" John stopped her lips with his, kissing her firmly and pulling her against him. She didn't respond at first, but after a second or two Natalie relaxed and met his passion with her own. When they finally parted, she looked in his eyes and said, "That wasn't very professional, Lieutenant McBain."

"I'm sorry," John said softly.

"You are?" Natalie said.

"No, not at all," John said. "If none of the rest of this was going on I would show you just how not sorry I am."

Natalie sighed. "I can't let my sister's daughter be in danger," she said. "Even if her mother couldn't care less about me right now."

"I get that," John said. "But we need to take a step back from this for a minute or two and let our thoughts settle a bit. Let's go see Liam."

"OK," Natalie said. "Just a short break though." John walked out of Bree's room and into the nearby nursery where Liam was napping. John walked over to him and stood looking down at the sleeping boy. My son, he thought, and it felt right even though he knew it still might not be. "You can pick him up," Natalie said from where she stood beside him.

"I don't want to wake him," John said.

"He'll want to know you were here," Natalie said.

John looked at her and saw her seriousness. "Do you really think he's my son?" he asked.

"Yes, I absolutely do," she said.

"How can you when a couple days ago you were certain he was Brody's?" John said.

"Because I've always seen how you are with him and how much he is like you," Natalie said. "I tried to ignore those things or write them off as just wishful thinking, but that test saying you are the father just proves that what I sensed all along is true."

"I wish I could believe that," John said, looking back at Liam.

"You will when you're ready," Natalie said.

John was silent. He didn't know what he was going to do if the second test of Brody's DNA came up as a match. It was as though they had dug an even deeper hole that they might not be able to climb out of. He would have been able to deal with Liam being Brody's son based on the first test; he had reached a point where he could accept that. But now with two more tests, including one where his own name was there in black and white as a match, he was worried that everything they were rebuilding would collapse if it turned out Liam wasn't his son. And if that happened, that could well be the end of things between them once and for all.

"John?" Natalie said.

"I was just thinking," John said. "He's so incredible."

"Yes, he is," Natalie. "He's a blessing."

Liam's eyes opened, and John reached down to scoop the boy up in his arms. Liam gurgled as John held him close and grabbed the sleeve of John's black shirt with his little hand. Warmth flooded John's heart as he held Liam. But that moment of joy was shattered when he looked over Natalie's shoulder and saw Tess appear in the hallway briefly before disappearing from sight.

"Take him," John said, pushing Liam at a surprised Natalie as gently as he could before taking off after Tess.

2

Natalie was shocked for a moment that John would just shove Liam at her and take off, but when she heard his quick steps in the hallway and on the stairs she knew this wasn't about getting away from a baby he thought might not be his. This had to be about Tess. She set Liam down and made sure that he was settled properly before she took off after John. She found him and Tess in the Llanfair foyer, Tess yelling at him to let her go while John recited the Miranda rights and cuffed her hands behind her back.

"Where is she?" Natalie yelled as she came down the stairs, not caring whether she was stepping on John's investigator toes. "Where is Bree?"

"How would I know?" Tess said.

"We know you took her," Natalie said, walking over to Tess and getting right in her face. "Where is she?" Tess said nothing, and Natalie grabbed her by the gaudy, low-cut dress she wore. "Tell me where she is!" she yelled.

"Back off," John said, pulling Natalie off of Tess. Natalie glared at him.

"It wasn't enough that you slept with Jessica's boyfriend and had his kid?" Tess said. "You had lose Bree too?"

"You have her!" Natalie shouted. "Where is she?"

"You can't pin this one on me," Tess said.

"Then why are you here?" John said.

Natalie looked at John in shock. "You aren't believing this are you?" she said.

"You should know he would believe anything," Tess said. "After all, you fed him lies by the bushel, just like you fed them to me. And he ate them up like candy."

Natalie opened her mouth to say something when it clicked in her mind that Tess had said "fed them to me" – when it had been Jessica who had been the recipient of those lies, not her alter.

"Jessica?" she said.

Natalie's sister looked at John. "Are you going to take these handcuffs off me?" she asked.

"Not until I'm sure of who you are," John said.

"You want to know who I am?" she said. "I'm exactly who Natalie made me, just like you are: a couple of used and abused saps she took advantage of."

Natalie saw John reach for the key to the cuffs. "She isn't Jessica," Natalie said. "She couldn't be. I know Jessica, and she wouldn't…"

"You know me?" her sister said. "Oh really, now, Natty, just how well do you know me? What did you think I was going to do when I found out that you had gotten stinking, white trash drunk with my boyfriend while I was mentally disabled, and then striped naked and rolled around in bed with him until you conceived his child? Are you such a sleazy whore that you couldn't even use birth control?" Out of the corner of her eye Natalie saw John's troubled face before he looked away. "But no one was supposed to know though, right? You were supposed to be allowed to play your trampy games with Brody and then live an untainted life with another man, pretending he was the father of your bastard child…"

"Liam…"

"So you don't know where Bree is?" John asked, cutting Natalie off. He had the key out and was releasing Jessica from the cuffs. Natalie didn't entirely understand what her sister was doing, but she knew that she was Jessica: furious, hateful Jessica, not Tess, because Tess couldn't care less about what Natalie had done with Brody. Natalie looked at John, but he didn't meet her gaze. He hadn't looked at her since Jessica's tirade began.

Jessica rubbed her newly freed wrists. "My guess is that Natalie hid her away somewhere so she could get you to help her 'find' my daughter," she said. "And blaming the alter her betrayals brought out is only the icing on the cake."

Natalie saw John look at her then, and she was stunned to see that he might actually be considering such insanity possible. She looked back at Jessica. "You know I would never…"

"I don't know you at all, and I don't want to know you," Jessica said. "I wish you had never come to Llanview."

"You don't mean that…"

"Why did you come to Llanfair?" John asked. "And why did you take off when I came after you?"

"Because I saw you there with that child of hers, the pretend family that she created with Brody's child," Jessica said. "I just had to get out of here; I couldn't bear to think that she would get what she wanted after all."

"That doesn't answer why you were here," Natalie said. Her guts were aching like Jessica had stuck a dagger in them and twisted it – and John had just watched her do so.

"I came here because of this," Jessica said, and she pulled a folded piece of white paper out of her pocket. "But you probably know about this already."

John took the paper from her and unfolded it. "Meet me at Llanfair," he read. He looked at Jessica. "Is this from Brody?" he asked.

"No," Jessica said. "It's from Nash."

3

John looked at the four words on the unsigned note, and then looked back at Jessica to try to determine if she was completely off her rocker. "Why would you think this is from Nash?" he asked.

"It's his handwriting," Jessica said. She looked at Natalie. "I still remember it all these years later," she added.

"Nash is dead," Natalie said, and John knew she had stepped right on the land mine with that one.

"Yes, he is," Jessica snarled. "I was there when you and Jared killed him."

"It was…"

"Don't you dare defend yourself about that," Jessica said.

"So what is this?" John asked, holding up the note to try to get things back on track.

"Why don't you ask her?" Jessica said. "She's the forensics expert."

"Why in the world would I…"

"Enough of this," John said. "This isn't about Nash or Natalie. This is about Bree." He looked at Jessica. "I'm going to take this down to the station to be analyzed," he said. "If you hear anything else from the person who sent this, let me know." He glanced at Natalie. "Are you coming down to the station?" he asked.

"I don't want her involved in this," Jessica said, "and if you were smart…"

"Stop it already," Natalie said. "I get that you are angry at me for a number of reasons, and you have every right to be. But that doesn't give you free range to mess with my life in return."

"No, of course not," Jessica said. "You should just get away with it all because you never meant to hurt anyone."

"I didn't," Natalie said. "Not you, and not John."

John's irritation with both of them was reaching the boiling point. "If the two of you want to stand here and argue about nothing go ahead," he said. "I'm going to get to the bottom of this and find Bree."

He yanked open the front door and was shocked to find himself standing face-to-face with a living and breathing man who seemed to be Nash Brennan, his right hand holding on to his daughter's left.

"Oh my God," Jessica said before fainting and collapsing in a heap on the floor. Bree ran over to her mother, but John saw that Natalie just stood there staring at the man in the doorway.

"How is this possible?" Natalie asked.

John looked back at the other man who didn't speak, just waited a beat and then smiled.


	8. Chapter 8

What Love Is: Part 8

By Morganperidot

1

"You can explain yourself here or at the police station," John said coolly, directing his statement at the man in the doorway of Llanfair who looked like Nash Brennan. Beside John, Natalie was impatiently awaiting an explanation as well. And unconscious on the floor was Natalie's twin sister, most recently Jessica, who had fainted when John had opened the front door to reveal her dead husband standing there with her missing daughter, Bree.

"Are you going to invite me in?" the man asked, his voice sounding similar to how Natalie remembered Nash's to be. "It's cold out here, and I'd like to see if Jessica is OK."

Natalie glanced at her sister for the first time since she had seen this man standing there, and the fury she had felt at Jessica's wild accusations about her being the one who took Bree – and the questioning expression on John's face when he looked at her in the wake of those accusations – resurfaced, along with the bristling she had felt at the rest of his sister's barrage of insults. Natalie was more than willing to admit to her mistakes in the events that surrounded her pregnancy and engagement to John, but her sister's unbounded vitriol at this point when she and John were finally reconnecting was too much for her to just accept quietly. Besides Natalie had seen John avoid her gaze once Jessica had really launched into it, which infuriated her as well. Were she and John headed back to square one again?

Wordlessly she stepped aside so the man who looked like Nash could walk in and over to Jessica. He shushed Bree softly and then carefully knelt beside Jessica. He felt her neck with two fingertips, and Natalie saw something medically professional in his movements that didn't remember seeing in Nash. "She'll be fine," he said. "Who she'll be when she wakes up is another matter."

"Is that supposed to be funny?" Natalie asked.

"No," the man said, standing up. "Just honest."

"You come here looking like her dead husband, and you want to bring up honesty?" Natalie said.

He arched an eyebrow. "What do you think, that I had plastic surgery to look like Nash?" he said.

"Stranger things have happened," John said. "So, do you want to tell us why you look like a dead man, or do you want me to arrest you first?"

"Is that a crime?" the man asked.

"Impersonating someone to kidnap a child is," John said.

"I didn't know taking my daughter for ice cream is considered kidnapping," the man said.

"Your daughter?" Natalie said. "Are you saying you are Nash Brennan?" She didn't care if she was once again stepping on John's toes in this questioning. "Give us a straight answer," she added.

At that moment Jessica sat up, looked at this man, and then stood. "Nash?" she spoke in unsure tone that was nothing like the one of brutal certainty she had used earlier with Natalie. "The skylight…the fall and the glass…you died," she said.

"I'm sorry, Jessica," the man said quietly. "It seemed like the only way to handle things at the time, to protect you and Bree." He turned and looked at Natalie and then at John. "I am Nash Brennan," he said. "He just wasn't who any of you thought he was."

Jessica grabbed his arm, and he turned back to her. "How can you say that?" she asked. "I knew you – I knew Nash – better than I ever knew anyone in my life. He was my husband and my best friend through one of the most difficult times in my life…"

"And he – I – lied to you," Nash said. "I thought I had put certain things behind me – or I wanted to believe that I had. So I invented a new life, a new person who was more like me that I had ever been before. My love for you, the vineyard dreams, those were all real. You just never asked me much about my past, and I didn't volunteer it. I thought it was better – safer – to pretend that the Nash that you knew was the only one there had ever been."

Jessica stood there staring at him for several seconds during which no one spoke. The parallels between this man with multiple lives and her sister and between the lies he had told and her own weren't lost on her, but she knew this wasn't the time to mention any of that. Finally Jessica's stillness was broken when she delivered a sharp smack to Nash's face that was almost enough to send him sprawling. Natalie looked at John, but once again he didn't meet her gaze. He was still standing where he had been, by the door, as though he was torn between staying to watch the latest Buchanan horror show unfold or fleeing as far away from her family as he could, as quickly as he could. The shock of the moment was broken when Bree started crying. Natalie had forgotten the child was even there, and her wailing set off Liam's own cries upstairs.

Jessica shot a look at her, and Natalie saw the strong, tough fury of Tess deep in her eyes. "Take Bree upstairs," she said. In another situation Natalie might have commented on the irony of her sister asking her take the very daughter she had just accused her of kidnapping, but this was not the moment for that. John was already responding to Liam's cries, heading in the direction of the stairs. Natalie took Bree's hand and followed.

2

Jessica slapping Nash had barely penetrated the fugue John had found himself slipping into since Jessica's rehashing of what she thought to be Natalie's crimes against her. Bree's wail had punctured deeper into the fog, but it was Liam who had roused him to action. The sound of Liam's distress had struck a primal protective chord within him, deep in his blood, and everything else around him dissolved in response. Without a word to anyone, he just walked away from the situation, gaining the stairs quickly and heading to Liam's room. When he saw Liam he could hear himself thinking almost subconsciously, "my son", and remembered thinking the same thing when he had first seen and first held Liam. It was that immediate awareness and acknowledgment between them that had first bonded them. And severing that bond with the words that Brody was Liam's father had been tantamount to tearing a hole in the very fabric of his soul.

John swept Liam up in his arms and held him close to his body, speaking softly until he calmed. Liam played with John's fingers for a moment and then looked up at him with his big, beautiful eyes. John kissed him on the forehead. "I love you," he said, and he thought he saw Liam smile.

He heard a slight noise nearby and turned to see Natalie standing beside them; he hadn't heard her enter the room. "How is Bree?" he asked.

"Upset," Natalie said as she moved Liam's hair with her fingertips. "But it's not as hard for her to accept her father pretending to be dead and suddenly reappearing as it is for the rest of us. She just doesn't understand why Mommy is so upset."

"Jessica should have waited to…"

"It's hard to know when to wait," Natalie said, and her tone drew John's eyes to her face. She was obviously upset with him for his reaction – or lack thereof – to what Jessica had said, but really, what did she expect? Hearing Jessica voice her anger and pain so bluntly had brought his own back to the surface – mostly the pain. "I don't want to argue in front of Liam," he said. "If you want, we can talk somewhere else." John looked back at Liam and smiled, then set him down in his bed.

Natalie was silent for a moment, and then she said, "We can go to my room." John followed her out and into the other room. She shut the door once they were inside. John spent a moment looking around the room; there was so much of her in the colors and decorations. It gave him a sense of peace, like it did to have her things around his place. "Do you really think I would take Bree and lead you on a wild goose chase looking for her?" she asked.

"No," John said.

"But you had to think about it," Natalie said.

"I think about everything," John said. "I'm a cop."

"You shouldn't have had to think about that," Natalie said. "There should have been no question."

"Like there should have been no question that you wouldn't tell me another man's child was mine," John said.

Natalie shook her head and turned away from him. "So we're back to that," she said. "You love Liam, but you can't forgive me."

"I'm working on it," John said. "I can't just snap my fingers, and everything is fixed."

"No, but you can get your rocks off in the meantime," Natalie said. John laughed; it was wildly inappropriate, but it came out before he could stop it. "Yeah, that's funny right? Are you just stringing me along for a few romps in the sack?"

It was John's turn to shake his head. "Believe me if I just wanted that I would do it with someone who didn't have strings attached," he said.

"Well then, maybe you should cut the ones you have with me and make things easier," Natalie said.

John stared at her; she was all fired up, ready for battle – and incredibly beautiful. He didn't respond, just took a breath and let the silence wash over them. After several seconds he said, "I don't remember drugging or forcing you. If you didn't want to, you had every opportunity to tell me no."

"Physical attraction isn't a relationship, John," Natalie said.

"And I'm working on the rest of it," John said. "If you don't want to be physically involved with me until after everything is resolved, then tell me that. But the bottom line is that I can't just forgive and forget everything like it never happened no matter how much I might want to. I'm sorry if that isn't good enough for you."

Natalie stayed silent, and John waited it out. He was so turned on at that moment that the idea of no physical contact would be close to impossible. She looked at him. "What do you really want, John?" she said finally, the anger mostly drained away. "Does this make sense to you anymore? Is it worth it to keep going around this? You can be with Liam as much as you want; we can work out some kind of joint custody agreement. If all we are doing here is beating a dead horse that's already been shot, poisoned, and run over, maybe it's time to just let it go."

"That isn't what I really want," John said.

"Are you sure that…"

"Yes," John said.

"Then why is it so hard for you to forgive me?" Natalie said.

"It wouldn't be if I just let things be," John said. "I can put them behind me, and we can move on. But somewhere down the road I'm going to wonder if I shouldn't have taken the time to get my head straight. That's all I'm asking for; not time to decide, I've already done that. I just need some time for all of my spinning brain cells to resettle." Natalie looked away again. "What is it?" he said. When she didn't respond he said, "Tell me, Natalie. If you don't think this is going to work anymore…"

"No," Natalie said, still not looking at him. "I think I'm going to lose you again."

John felt his blood run cold. The tone of her voice, the bare honesty, hurt his heart to hear. "That won't happen," he said.

Natalie looked at him, and he saw the tears in her eyes. "It has before," she said.

John threw the whole concept of no physical interaction out the window as he walked over to her and drew her into his arms. "I love you, Natalie," he said. "You've always been the one." She held on to him like a buoy in a tsunami, and he closed his eyes and held her close. That was the truth of it in the end, he thought, no matter how violent the waves crashing against the shore, they had always been each other's safe harbor and true home. "You won't lose me," he whispered into her hair.

"I love you," Natalie said, so softly he could barely hear it.

And John thought maybe it was time to stop being cautious after all. "Come home with me," he said.

3

Reluctantly, Natalie pulled back from the warm safety of his embrace. "Home?" she said.

"Our home, with our son," John said. He wiped the tear streaks from her face with his thumbs.

"You said you needed time to let things settle," Natalie said. She reached out for his hand, and he held it firmly in his.

"I want to be with you and Liam," John said.

"You don't want to wait for the results of the third test?" Natalie said.

John smiled. "Now you want to talk me out of this?" he asked.

"No, I…I just want you to be sure," Natalie said.

"I'm sure," John said. "We have things to work out, but it's better that we do that on our own turf."

Natalie couldn't help but smile at that. "Our own turf," she said. "Very colorful, Detective."

"Pack a bag, and let's go," John said. "This big place gives me the creeps."

"We should probably go and check on Jessica and Nash first," Natalie said. She didn't really want to do so, but she did owe it to her sister to work things out with her as well, and Nash being alive under the conditions he had described was going to be a lot for her to deal on top of everything else.

"I think I'd rather just sneak out a back window," John said.

Natalie laughed. "Yeah, me too, but that isn't safe with a baby," she said.

"I could probably rig something up," John said. "I can be resourceful when I need to be."

"I'm aware of that," Natalie said.

John grinned. "I guess we have to go down there," he said.

"Probably a good idea to make sure she hasn't killed him for real," Natalie said. She was already thinking ahead to what she was going to pack to take Liam to John's place that night as she walked down the stairs with John behind her. She was surprised to hear laughter coming from the library. The doors were wide open, so she walked straight over, stopping in her tracks when she spotted Jessica and Nash on the sofa, Jessica's head in his lap. "You've got to be kidding me," she said. "You two made up that quickly?"

"The two of us, yes," Nash said. "Jessica and I, not so much."

"Tess," John said.

"That's my name," Tess said. "Now get out."

"At least you can't blame me for killing Nash anymore," Natalie said. She looked at Nash. "I would like to hear the whole story about just what did happen," she said. She turned to John. "But not today," she added. She stepped back from the library and shut the doors. She stood there for a moment and sighed, but when she turned to John she was smiling again. "Let's go home," she said.


	9. Chapter 9

What Love Is: Part 9

By Morganperidot

1

Natalie and John arrived at his apartment later that night, and Natalie watched Liam while John brought up some things from Llanfair. Most of that stuff was Liam's; Natalie had only packed two bags for herself, a medium-sized suitcase with some clothes and shoes tossed in and a smaller bag with a variety of personal items. Although both she and John had referred to his apartment as their home, there was part of her that was still wary about the way their decision to live together again had come about, with him reacting to her vulnerability and tears rather than making a rational decision. If things went smoothly she could have the remainder of her things sent over from Llanfair.

It wasn't until John had left the last bag at the door and winced when he stretched that Natalie remembered that he had been wounded by Brody earlier in the day. "How is your shoulder?" she asked.

"It's OK," John said dismissively, as he took a bottle of beer out of the fridge. "Do you want one?" he asked.

"Maybe I should take a look at it," Natalie said.

"I said it's OK," John said. "It's a little sore, but I've had worse. It isn't a big deal."

"Right," Natalie said. "Like you would be saying that if it had happened to me." She kissed a sleepy Liam and set him down in his bed. Then she walked over to John and grasped his left hand with her right hand. "Come with me," she said.

"So that's how it's going to be?" John asked in a gently teasing tone.

"When it needs to be," Natalie said. She led him to the bathroom and then released his hand while she looked for some supplies. When she had them assembled, she turned back to him and briefly absorbed the magnetic warmth of his nearness. Without saying anything she reached for the bottom of his black shirt and began to lift it; he raised his arms to ease the process. She took a moment to admire his revealed chest but kept her hands off for now. Instead she moved to his side to get a closer look at his injured shoulder.

The bandage on the wound was partly detached already, so she removed it gently. The skin underneath was reddish, but the damaged tissue didn't seem infected to her. She lightly applied a bit of antibiotic cream and put on a new bandage, pressing down with just her fingertips. John hadn't spoken while she tended the wound. "Did they give you any painkillers?" Natalie asked.

"The ER doctor handed me a few samples, but…"

"Where are they?" Natalie asked.

John looked at her. "I'm not a child," he said quietly, not angry, but annoyance was definitely present in his tone.

"I know that," Natalie said, "and I also know how your huge male ego makes you act like getting hit by a bullet doesn't faze you."

"Grazed by a bullet," John said.

"John, Brody shot at you…"

"I was there," John said. "It's not the end of the world, and I don't need to take any drugs to deal with it."

"Fine," Natalie said. She walked out of the bathroom and went back over to Liam who was sleeping silently. She knew that some day her son was going to be as stubborn and strong-willed as his parents, and that was going to make him a force to be reckoned with. She felt sorry for anyone who came up against him. John walked by her on his way to the kitchen to get his beer. His shirt was back on, and he was silent. Natalie sighed. This was far too stupid to be having an argument about. If he needed to suffer for his masculinity, that was his problem. "When are the DNA results back?" she asked.

"A few days," John said. He leaned his rear end against the counter and sipped his beer.

"And then what?" Natalie asked.

"What does that mean?" John asked.

"What if Liam isn't your son?" Natalie asked.

John set the bottle down. "I thought you didn't think that was possible," he said.

"What if it were?" Natalie said.

John looked away. "It's not," he said.

"Because he has to be biologically yours for you to accept us back," Natalie said.

"I thought we were past this," John said, lifting the bottle again.

"Are we ever really past anything?" Natalie asked.

"Maybe not," John said, "but that goes for the good as well as the bad."

"Yeah?" Natalie said.

"Yeah," John said.

Natalie walked over to him, took the beer out of his hand, and drank down a few gulps. John slid his arm around her. "It's so quiet without you here," he said.

Natalie laughed. "It's not going to quiet much anymore," she said. She set the bottle on the counter. "You should have left your shirt off," she said. She slid her hands under his shirt and around to the smooth curves of his back.

"I'd rather see yours off," John said, stepping into her arms before bringing his lips to her neck. Natalie just enjoyed the feeling of his body against hers, his lips gently exploring the length of her neck.

"Are you really OK?" Natalie asked, the concern from when she had heard he was shot still fluttering around in her heart.

"Yes," John whispered, his breath on her skin sending shivers through her body.

"And this is what you want?" Natalie pursued, despite her own physical protestations to just shut up and melt into John.

John raised his head to meet her gaze. "Which 'this'?" he asked.

"All of them," Natalie said.

John smiled. "Yes," he said. He started to unbutton her periwinkle blouse, his large male fingers surprisingly nimble with the tiny silver buttons.

Natalie lifted his chin. "And this isn't just about intimacy?" she said.

"This is about everything," John said. "The two of you are my life."

Natalie looked over at Liam. "Maybe we shouldn't be doing this in front of him," she said.

"It would solve the problem of explaining where he came from later on," John said, his voice so soft and sexy that Natalie's nerves were nearly humming in response. He put his hands inside the sides of her open blouse and settled them on her bare sides before pulling her against him again. He brought his lips close to her ear, and Natalie found it difficult to breathe. Had she thought about melting into him? At this moment it was more like vaporizing. "You belong with me," he said. He looked at her. "I need you," he said.

"Show me," Natalie said, and she saw the flames of passion leap high in his eyes.

He grasped her hand and led her toward the bedroom. Natalie pulled back against his steady steps to go and check on Liam, whom she found was still peacefully asleep. She looked back at John, and their eyes held each other's, the connection so deep it was almost physical in itself. Then he turned and walked into the bedroom, and Natalie followed, a smile spreading across her lips as she did so.

2

John woke to the sound of Liam crying. He saw Natalie slipping out of bed and said quietly, "No, I'll take care of him." Her eyes glittered in the darkness as she hesitated for a moment and then slid back under the covers. John put on a robe and then went to Liam on bare feet. It didn't take the full extent of his investigative skills to figure out what was troubling Liam; he could determine that easily enough with his sense of smell. He took care of the diaper issue, then took some time to walk around with Liam and talk to him before once again settling the sleepy baby into his bed. John lingered for a moment more, watching as Liam fluttered his heavy eyelids and then finally fell blissfully asleep. The last bit of tension in John relaxed, and he sighed. It felt like he was finally free of the chains that had held him inside the nightmare of losing his family.

John went back to the bed and for a few seconds or so he stood at the foot of it and looked a Natalie lying tangled in the bedclothes, her fiery red hair tumbled across her face. I love you, he thought, and there was no doubt in his mind – if there ever really had been. He had cared about other women in his life, genuinely cared, but none of those relationships had ever had the intensity that he felt with Natalie, which had only gotten stronger since Liam had joined them. John dropped his robe and got back on the bed, trying to move as close to Natalie as he could without waking her, but he did anyway. "Thank you," Natalie said sleepily.

"My pleasure," John responded quietly. He snuggled beside her. When he was settled again with his body against hers, his arm wrapped around her, he said, "I love you."

"I love you too," Natalie responded before drifting back to sleep. John didn't force himself to join her in sleep right away; he just lay there beside her and felt the peace and security of the moment. Behind closed eyelids he replayed a collection of scenes, good and bad, from their first meeting, to their weddings. Weddings, he thought, and there would have to be another one. The only good thing about that was would be seeing Natalie coming down the aisle toward him again, gorgeous and smiling, with the purpose in her step of someone who knew she was doing the right thing with the right person, like he knew she was the only one for him.

John felt the undeniable pressure of sleep weigh down on him, but he reached past it to pluck out one more scene, the airport, the night he had reclaimed her as his. He knew it was also the night that she had been with another man, but that no longer made him as angry as it once had. He didn't know if how far Brody had fallen had anything to do with that, it was possible, but mostly he understood that what happened between Natalie and Brody meant nothing. And whatever the original DNA test had said, he thought, Liam wasn't conceived that night. That night belonged to them and their reconnection; the rest of it was just nothing but white noise in the background.

3

The day that the DNA results came in John went to pick them up. Although he had said that it didn't matter to him who got them, Natalie had decided it should be him. She stayed at their place with Liam, playing with him and telling him about his daddy. "Soon it will be confirmed in black and white for everyone to see," she told him.

Natalie didn't tell Liam about the dream she had the previous night; she hadn't wanted to tell John either, but he had sensed it somehow and simply asked: What's wrong? So, she had told him the about it: receiving the results and seeing that Brody was a match again. In her dream John had torn up the papers and walked out, and she had known it was finally over between them forever.

John had been silent for several seconds after she told him, and her heartbeat had quickened in response. Finally, he said, "Whatever it says I won't walk out. We'll figure out what to do."

Natalie thought he believed that, but she didn't think it would be so easy. John certainly might try to raise another man's son, but that man would always be a part of their lives. And her one-night stand with Brody would always hang over them. Natalie looked at Liam and found herself thinking the same thing she had thought the first time she awaited his DNA test results: You have to be John's.

When John got back, he tossed his black jacket on a chair and went into the kitchen, the envelope in his hand. He got some leftover pizza out of the fridge. "Do you want a slice?" he asked.

"Sure," Natalie said as she sat down on the sofa. She felt her heart pounding again.

John set the envelope down to put a couple slices on the plate and tossed that plate in the microwave. "It's finally warming up out there," he said.

"Seriously?" Natalie said. "You want to talk about the weather?"

John was silent for a moment and then said, "I guess I'm a little nervous."

"We don't have to do this now," Natalie said. "We can have some pizza and beer and just relax."

John glanced at the envelope. "That isn't going to change what this says," he said.

"No, but it might make it easier to open," Natalie said.

John smiled. He grabbed the pizza with one hand and a couple beers with the other. He walked over and sat beside her on the couch. "How's the little guy?" he asked as he set the beers down on the table.

"He's good," Natalie said. She took a slice of pizza off the plate, and did the best she could to eat it without getting any of it on her shirt. She had on one of the few tops she had brought with her, a long-sleeved green T-shirt. They had planned to arrange for the rest of her things to be sent over the following day. She didn't know if that would change after the envelope was opened. John twisted the caps off the two beers with his bare hand before taking the other slice. "He's yours, John," she said.

"I know," John said, but he didn't look at her while he ate his slice. Natalie picked up one of the beers and downed a few swallows before putting it back on the table. She looked over at Liam, then at John. There was so much similar about them; it had to be true.

When the pizza and beer were finished Natalie didn't feel any more relaxed than she had before, and from the tense way John was sitting, it didn't look like he was either. "Maybe we should get this over with," she said.

John moved closer and then kissed her, softly but deeply. When they parted he said, "I love you. Nothing in that envelope will change that."

I hope that's true, Natalie thought. She said, "I love you, too."

John went to get the envelope and brought it back over to the sofa. He hesitated for a moment, looking at the flap. Natalie reached over and took it, unable to bear the waiting any longer. She tore open the flap and pulled out the papers so both of them could see them. Her vision was blurred by the stress of the moment, she wasn't immediately sure if she could trust what she saw at the bottom as the final result of the comparison of Brody's DNA to Liam's. She looked at John and saw his eyes shimmering with a hint of tears, and she thought no, it can't be, not again… "He's mine," John said softly, and Natalie looked back at the papers, down to the bottom where it Brody Lovett was not a match. She felt the tears of relief and joy spill out of her own eyes. John threw the papers over the back of the sofa and pulled Natalie in his arms. The tears were still dripping down Natalie's cheeks, but at that moment she was the happiest she had ever been.


End file.
